Carbon neutrality

Barclays has offset its unavoidable carbon dioxide emissions by buying carbon credits. We seek to buy voluntary carbon credits (VERs) from projects that have economic and social benefits for their local communities. For example, to help offset our 2006 emissions, we purchased Verified Emissions Reductions equivalent to 15,000 tonnes of CO2 from project that is installing 500 energy-efficient ‘Lion Stoves’ in Lesotho, Southern Africa.

Barclays believes that climate change is an issue that requires urgent action from governments, business and consumers. We aim to reduce emissions from our own operations, and we offset the remaining emissions. Our aim is to be carbon neutral by the end of 2009 by offsetting our 2008 emissions from global banking operations.

We are taking a phased approach to going carbon neutral by offsetting UK emissions only in 2007 and UK and European emissions in 2008. To date, we have purchased 416,000 tonnes of emissions from a mixture of Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) and Verified Emissions Reductions (VERs). You can see a full list of our purchased credits on our Carbon registry page.

Why offset?

Offsetting is only effective if it is part of a strategy that puts emissions reductions firmly as the top priority. We believe it has a valuable role to play as part of a balanced set of carbon reduction measures. At Barclays, each Business Unit pays the cost of offsetting according to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted, which provides a small but additional financial incentive to reduce emissions. It also helps transfer clean technology to developing countries, and it can be a powerful tool for communicating on climate change.

Offsetting has come under criticism from some commentators who question whether the purchase of a carbon offset credit really represents one tonne of carbon dioxide saved. In response to this, there are now several independent bodies that set standards for carbon credits with the best known being the Voluntary Carbon Standard and the Voluntary Gold Standard. Barclays only purchases carbon credits that meet one of these standards or is sourced through the Clean Development Mechanism projects approved by the United Nations.

Our approach

We believe in the importance of having a transparent approach to carbon offsetting. Our carbon footprint is verified by the independent auditor SGS. In addition, the detail of how we measure our carbon footprint and how we select our carbon credits is set out in our Protocol for Carbon Accounting and Offsetting. Our Protocol has been reviewed by several external stakeholders, and is updated each year to incorporate feedback and lessons learnt.