What is carbon compensation and how does it work?
In practice, carbon compensation, or offsetting, means that a company supports climate-positive actions outside its own value chain, to the extent of the carbon emissions that it cannot immediately reduce itself. Carbon compensation generally means that a company acquires carbon credits. These units are formed, for example, by supporting the introduction of renewable energy or afforestation projects in developing countries.
Why does Elisa compensate?
Elisa’s primary objective has been to identify its own emissions and look for means to reduce them. Emission reductions and actions have been carried out since 2009. Given that we cannot eliminate all emissions generated by our operations, we use offsetting to accelerate climate action while systematically looking for ways to reduce our offsetting portion.
Is the offsetting paid for by Elisa’s customers?
Elisa’s offsetting is about the company’s voluntary climate action, the costs of which are not collected from customers in the form of voluntary payments, for example. Nor do the costs have a direct impact on products or services.
Are Elisa’s services carbon-neutral??
Elisa is carbon-neutral in its own operations, so the services we offer, including subscriptions, are calculated to be carbon-neutral.
How can I be sure of the climate benefits of compensation?
Elisa transparently retires the carbon credits related to the compensation used, so that they can no longer be resold. Acquired carbon credits and their climate benefits are communicated in an understandable way on a regular and transparent basis.
What is a “carbon handprint”?
The term carbon handprint means the positive effects on the climate that arise when a company or individual helps others to reduce their own carbon footprint. To take an everyday example, your neighbour could lend you their bike to go shopping without a car, eliminating the emissions that would have come from burning petrol.
Elisa wants to help its customers and society more broadly to reduce their carbon footprint. This is what we call our carbon handprint.
How does Elisa choose carbon offsetting projects?
Elisa chooses carbon offsetting projects that are high quality, that reduce different types of greenhouse gas emissions and that are in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. At the moment, half of our projects are certified as Gold Standard, and we ensure that all of our projects are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Our emission reductions are new and additional, so they would not arise without these projects. In addition to these offsetting projects, Elisa also engages in a number of other uncertified climate actions as an additional way of raising awareness, for example.
We welcome and actively engage in dialogue with providers and other experts or stakeholders, in order to continuously develop Elisa’s emission compensation approach and portfolio.
At the moment, Elisa is engaged with Nordic Offset, South Pole, and Afstor, as its partners for carbon offsetting projects.