Full Title: Statement on Evidensia-led Systematic Literature Review to Understand the Effectiveness of Corporate Carbon Offsetting as an Alternative to Direct Emissions Abatement
Author(s): Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)
Publisher(s): Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)
Publication Date: July 30, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
In December 2023, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) commissioned Evidensia to conduct a systematic review in order to assess evidence from peer-reviewed scientific literature on the effectiveness of corporate use of carbon credits as an alternative to direct emission abatement as part of company decarbonization efforts. This is a research input into the revision of the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard, currently underway.
Systematic reviews are research studies that sum up the best available evidence on a specific research question and use transparent procedures to find, evaluate and synthesize results from multiple studies. Such reviews are most useful when there is a critical mass of relevant primary, empirical research that speaks to the research question and provides robust, comparable data to assess intervention effectiveness.
The research question that guided this review was “What does the scientific evidence say on the climate impact on the purchase/use of carbon credits (and related finance/corporate investment) from beyond the value chain by corporations as an alternative to abatement of emissions within the value chain?”