The Oxford Offsetting Principles
Overview
The Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting (Revised 2024) are an essential resource to guide the design and delivery of net zero commitments by governments, cities and companies.
Carbon offsetting schemes are frequently used to help organisations achieve net zero carbon emissions. However, current approaches are unlikely to deliver the level of emissions reduction needed to achieve global climate goals.
Well thought-out carbon offsetting can contribute to net zero strategies, particularly in hard-to-decarbonise sectors. However, if not done well, offsetting can result in ‘greenwashing’ and create unintended negative impacts for both people and the environment.
Revised Oxford Offsetting Principles 2024
Since the initial publication of the Principles in 2020, there has been growing interest in aligning organisational and offsetting strategies with net zero. Despite this, evidence continues to cast doubt on the integrity of many carbon credits used for offsetting, and most offsetting that occurs today is still not net zero aligned.
In the past few years, analyses of the most common types of carbon credit projects have found evidence of over-crediting that undermines climate change mitigation efforts. Furthermore, the supply of credible removals is still far from sufficiently scaled. In recognition of these challenges, some organisations and standard bodies have opted to move away from the term ‘offsetting’ to avoid misleading claims.
The revised Principles underscore the core components of the original Principles, calling for a major course-correction in carbon markets and offsetting practices, while also clarifying aspects of the Principles for net zero alignment in areas where authors felt further detail would be beneficial to users.
We focus on four main elements for credible net zero aligned offsetting:
- Cut emissions, ensure the environmental integrity of credits used to achieve net zero, and regularly revise your offsetting strategy as best practice evolves
- Transition to carbon removal offsetting for any residual emissions by the global net zero target date
- Shift to removals with durable storage (low risk of reversal) to compensate any residual emissions by the net zero target date
- Support the development of innovative and integrated approaches to achieving net zero
Read the Principles:
With a focus on transparency, durability, and innovation, the Oxford Offsetting Principles chart a course for organisations to navigate the evolving landscape of carbon markets and offsetting practices. Key highlights include urgent calls to accelerate emission reductions, close the carbon removal gap, and harness the power of nature-based solutions.
This document should be interpreted and used in line with its purpose and scope to maintain and promote the highest possible climate ambition. This document does not address legal and other obligations relating to climate action.
More on the Principles
To learn more about the Oxford Offsetting Principles, watch the launch webinar, the debate, or read our article:
Practitioners Forum
Since their initial release in 2020, the Oxford Offsetting Principles (OOPs) have seen widespread recognition as a rigorous, science-based approach to designing a net zero aligned offsetting strategy.
Moving from Principles to practice requires a whole-of-ecosystem approach from suppliers to buyers, standard-setters to financiers. The Oxford Offsetting Principles Practitioners Forum is a conduit for this: convening key stakeholders around what is required for operationalisation of the Oxford Offsetting Principles. Each Forum session produces insights into areas pertinent to their real-world application in portfolios and policy alike.
Sign up for the practitioners forum newsletter if you wish to learn more about the thematic updates produced by the Forum and other updates concerning further aspects on the Oxford Offsetting Principles.
Over the past five years since their release, we have seen the Principles occupy a unique position in the ecosystem, connecting current practice to the science of net zero. There are both emergent synergies and divergences with other frameworks towards this end, the assessment of which yields further options for how the OOPs could evolve in the future.
Download the summary of session one: Foundation and Function of the Principles.
Understanding an organisation’s necessary emissions reductions on the path to net zero is foundational to setting a net-zero-aligned offsetting strategy. Only from this starting point can a credible project portfolio be established, that adheres to the Oxford Offsetting Principles by ensuring all residual emissions are counterbalanced with carbon removal methods that have the lowest risk of reversal by the net zero target date, with interim milestones along the way.
Download the summary of session two: Aligned Pathways and Portfolios.
Among other things Principle Four of the Oxford Offsetting Principles speaks to the need to integrate a net zero aligned approach into standards and policies. Various developments have occurred to date with both explicit and implicit recognition of the OOPs in a variety of standards and policy settings. There is a need to advance on this and continue to embed them into further regulation in future. In this way, the OOPs cannot only act as a marker of integrity from the standpoint of establishing an offsetting strategy but can further promote further coherency and net zero alignment across the broader policy ecosystem.
Download the summary of session three: Embedding the Oxford Offsetting Principles in Standards and Policies.
High-quality Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) is essential to upholding the Oxford Offsetting Principles, particularly in ensuring the environmental integrity and transparency of portfolios which can include a wide range of project types. This session underscored the role of robust, pathway-specific MRV protocols as a means of delivering conifdence in an offsetting portfolio that adheres to the Principles’ emphasis on transparency, scientific rigour and accountability.
Download the summary of session four: Monitoring, Verification & Reporting
Smith School authors
External authors
- Professor Myles Allen | Environmental Change Institute, Oxford Net Zero and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
- Dr Thomas Hale | Oxford Martin School and Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
- Dr Conor Hickey | Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
- Eli Mitchell-Larson | Environmental Change Institute and Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
- Professor Yadvinder Malhi | Environmental Change Institute, Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, University of Oxford
- Professor Nathalie Seddon | Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Department of Biology; Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
- Audrey Wagner | Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Department of Biology: University of Oxford
- Alison Smith | Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Professor Nick Eyre | Environmental Change Institute; Zero-carbon Energy Research Oxford (ZERO) Institute: University of Oxford