Green Sod protected site: Red Bog, Co. Carlow.
EcoMerit Member Green Sod Ireland is proud to announce their new biodiversity friendly carbon credits are now available:
“We currently have 900 tonnes of biodiversity-friendly carbon credits available to sell to organisations who meet our criteria. The carbon storage in several sites around Ireland simultaneously provides habitats for native species, in woodlands, heaths, natural grasslands, blanket bogs, lakes and wetlands. This is a unique carbon offsetting scheme, certified by EcoMerit, that is actively tackling the biodiversity crisis in Ireland alongside the climate crisis.”
Read more about it here.
The debate surrounding Carbon Credits
At EcoMerit we understand that there is a debate surrounding Carbon Offsetting/Carbon Credits in the environmental/climate action space. Two main issues are:
- If the company is not taking appropriate action on the direct impact of their commercial activity and are using offsets as a way of buying their way out of reducing their own emissions/environmental impact.
- In such a large growing global market the traceability/quality of carbon credits and the type of offsets associated are not all equal.
As such there is a worry that these two things can lead to a situation where big companies continue to pollute excessively, then meet carbon targets by buying carbon credits of dubious quality. This can result in minimisation of effective climate action/overall emission reductions and an enabling of passivity from big business to carry on with ‘business as usual’.
However if a company is already taking direct appropriate action on their environmental impact (such as those companies with high quality independent environmental certification and support) and are looking for ways to take further action, supporting the type of projects GreenSod are involved in can be a great way of doing so.
Maintaining wild spaces in their natural state (or rewilding them to return to this state) so that they can continue to act as carbon sinks and as habitats to biodiverse native flora and fauna, is one of the simplest and most effective ways of counteracting climate change, ecological breakdown, and biodiversity loss. These natural spaces and ecosystems are incredibly important to the health of our planet in so many ways that go beyond carbon sequestration. For a wonderful dive into the importance of maintaining native forestland check out this documentary featuring Irish botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjm_l4LVlR8
GreenSod are very transparent in the work that they do, and the positive impact is clear.
As EcoMerit members they are committed to ensuring they manage their own direct environmental impact (walking the walk, not just talking the talk) and we think they are a great example of ‘the right kind’ of Carbon Offsetting projects.
