Can You Buy Your Way Out of Climate Guilt?

Carbon offsets promise control in a chaotic climate—Taylor Swift isn’t the only one buying in. But the industry’s been caught selling feel-good math. What’s real, what’s questionable, and what actually works.

As the climate continues to surprise us, a few of us have concerns. So we pay to offset our flight’s emissions. We support companies like Microsoft, Patagonia, and IKEA which claim—or aim—to be carbon neutral. Even celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow and Taylor Swift offset their oversized impact from private jets and Gatsby-esque lifestyles.

Awash in scandal over the past two years, the voluntary carbon offset market crashed hard after study after study and journalistic expose after expose found projects funded by Disney, Chevron, and more failed to help the climate as claimed.

If these billion-dollar companies got hoodwinked, what chance do the rest of us have? Is this deliberate greenwashing or genuine responsibility-taking? Can carbon offsets actually help?

Carbon Credits, Emissions, and Offsets, Oh My!

Cindy Yeilding, former BP America Senior VP, simplified things. Picture Lady Justice’s scales: “Carbon neutrality is a state of balance between carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions—generated through … burning fuel, industrial activities, or farming—and capturing, avoiding, or offsetting these emissions.” (Net zero goes a step further, when companies pledge to eliminate emissions.)

Wait, what exactly are we emitting, and should we be concerned?

In the cycle of life, animals exhale CO₂ which plants exchange for oxygen. But then humans mucked things up. “The science is pretty definitive: The significant increase in … greenhouse gasses over the past few centuries directly correlates to human activities,” said Yeilding.

These gasses create a massive greenhouse by “trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere,” explained Yeilding. This has increased the average global temperature by nearly 1.5 degrees C and rising. “Extreme weather, melting glaciers, warming oceans, and resultant sea level rise are often linked to this rapid increase in temperature.”

Despite complicated chemistry, the end result is simple: We’re heating Earth faster than we can compensate.

Taking Responsibility

A decade ago, I was that person; calculating my carbon footprint and paying to offset it. I had the luggage tags to prove it. It worked like this: If I calculated 16 tons CO₂ yearly—average for Americans—I’d buy 16 credits.

I didn’t do this from guilt but duty; I believed that offsetting also supported the development of an innovative planet-saving industry.

Individuals actually comprise a fraction of this market. It’s mostly companies and carbon cowboys that buy and sell credits, even speculating on carbon futures. One can also invest in carbon ETFs (like mutual funds). Some do it for conscience or PR value; others, for profit.

A Woman Invented Carbon Offsets

At its core, offsetting is genius—and invented by a woman. In 1987, an energy company CEO tasked Sheryl Sturges with reducing their impact on global warming. Trees absorb CO₂ as they grow, so after developing the idea, they planted 52 million trees to offset 40 years of emissions.

Time Magazine’s 1988 story, “Antidote For A Smokestack,” kickstarted the industry. Offsetting projects sprouted like mushrooms after rain—removing methane from landfills, installing energy-efficient cookstoves, capturing carbon from air.

Many projects involved protecting forests, but those proved to be especially prone to problems.

What’s a Professional Way to Say “Clusterf*ck?

“Who doesn’t love a tree?” posited Yeilding. “However, nature-based solutions like trees only offer a partial solution to tackling excess atmospheric CO₂.” If trees burn or otherwise croak, the carbon you thought you offset gets released.

A New Yorker exposé uncovered an “elaborate fraud” within the Zimbabwean Kariba project,  where millions were made selling vastly overvalued carbon credits. Climate consultancy South Pole paid locals to save forests, selling credits to Disney, Gucci, Nestlé, Porsche, and others.

Verra, the nonprofit “certifying” the credits, “only learned [details] upon publication of the article.” Yet a separate nine-month investigation found more than 90 percent of all Verra’s rainforest projects didn’t offset carbon as claimed. They remain in business.

Shocked by this and other revelations of scandal and incompetence, consumer companies retreated. That option to offset your flight? United pulled it. Apple got sued for claiming carbon neutrality for its watch. The market plummeted.

A Few Bad Apples or a Barrelful?

Experts remain divided on whether offsets are valid tools or piles of horse pucky. A recent review concluded that the market’s failures are from “systematic, deep-seated problems.” Federica Dossi, expert at Carbon Market Watch agreed, “You’re trying to find the good apples in a basket full of bad” while Eron Bloomgarden, founder of Emergent, insisted most projects remain legit and the industry can recover with transparency and investment.

High Tide Foundation’s Alexia Kelly, in a Harvard Business School podcast, called the voluntary offset industry an “artisanal baby market,” less than 1 percent of the $100 billion “compliance markets” (for example, California’s Cap-and-Trade and the EU’s Emissions Trading System). Even if projects aren’t perfect, she added, she’s “never seen a better system for getting money … to … the Global South and to frontline communities and ecosystems.”

Companies Need to Buck Up

“I used to be the person clicking to give that 50 extra cents [on trains],” said Dossi, but no more. “It is incredible to me that these [corporations] blame the consumer instead of … changing how they do things. If solving the climate crisis was as easy as paying 50 extra cents, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Offsetting should be the very last thing you do,” added Bloomgarden, whether you’re an individual or a corporation. In the climate world’s so-called mitigation hierarchy, reducing and avoiding emissions come first.

Instead, “Take a train when you would have taken a flight,” said Dossi; Reduce fuel, avoid single-use plastics, eat less meat. Another option? “Give money to a local group of activists—or join yourself.”

Did Companies Greenwash Us?

One thing that seems clear: Companies that bought offsets deemed “worthless” were trying to do right. Compared to the 1990s, that numerous corporations voluntarily reduce their footprints is astonishing—and hopeful. And it’s telling that even in the face of geopolitical pushback against climate action, most companies are greenhushing—continuing sustainability commitments, but more quietly.

Should we hold companies accountable? Absolutely. Celebrities? Not so much.

“IMO, Taylor Swift can do whatever she wants,” said Yeilding. While estimated emissions from her Eras Tour in 2024 are 31 times the average American, it’s less than 0.002 percent of Apple’s 22.6 million tons. In my opinion, focusing climate criticism on one badass woman is a red herring detracting from where it should be.

So, I’ve come full circle. I learned my offsets from TerraPass weren’t as great as promised—I would’ve made a stronger impact buying a hybrid car. But I’ll still watch where this industry heads as it recovers, with a critical but hopeful eye.