It's a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, carbon offsetting can contribute to global efforts to combat climate change by funding projects that reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. These projects can have tangible environmental benefits, like protecting forests, promoting clean energy, or capturing and storing carbon dioxide. However, carbon offsetting has faced criticism for various reasons. Some argue that it allows companies to continue emitting greenhouse gases without making meaningful efforts to reduce their emissions at the source. There are also concerns about the effectiveness and transparency of offset projects, as well as the potential for them to be used as a greenwashing tactic to improve corporate image without real environmental impact. Carbon Offsetting Definition - What Does it Mean? Carbon offsetting involves compensating for carbon emissions produced by activities like transportation, manufacturing, or energy production by investing in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere, such as renewable energy initiatives or reforestation efforts. The idea is to balance the carbon footprint created by one activity with a positive environmental action elsewhere. Is Carbon Offsetting Effective? The effectiveness of carbon offsetting depends on several factors. When done properly, carbon offsetting can contribute to mitigating climate change by funding projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These projects, such as renewable energy initiatives, forest conservation, or carbon capture and storage efforts, can have significant environmental benefits and help offset the carbon footprint of activities like transportation or energy production. But, and it is a big but, the effectiveness of carbon offsetting can vary widely depending on the quality and credibility of offset projects, as well as the transparency and accountability of carbon offset providers. Some offset projects can be low quality or merely move emissions rather than actually reduce them. Kind of like moving your veggies around the plate as a kid instead of eating them, or moving mess around the house instead of properly de-cluttering. Carbon offsetting shouldn’t be seen as a substitute for direct efforts to reduce emissions at the source through energy efficiency, renewable energy adoption, and other sustainable practices. Overall, while carbon offsetting can play a role in tackling climate change, its effectiveness comes down to how well they are monitored and implemented. It’s also essential to work on broader emissions reduction strategies in parallel, rather than seeing this as a substitute activity. Why is Carbon Offsetting Popular in Businesses? Carbon offsetting has become increasingly popular among businesses for several reasons. Firstly, it can be a quick fix. Offsetting allows companies to take immediate action to address their carbon footprint rather than waiting to get past all the barriers in some businesses (internal changes, infrastructure upgrades etc). It also offers a visible way for businesses to show that they’re serious about tackling climate change. They can engage with stakeholders and enhance their brand reputation by publicly committing to offsetting their carbon emissions. Companies can appeal to environmentally conscious consumers, investors, and employees who prioritise sustainability. This can lead to improved brand loyalty, increased customer engagement, and enhanced corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials. Businesses opting for carbon offsetting may be doing so for financial reasons. It can offer cost-effective ways to quickly “reduce” (remember, carbon offsetting contributes to projects that aim to prevent or reduce greenhouse gas emissions but doesn’t always mean businesses are actually reducing their own emissions) their carbon footprint. In some cases, offset projects can be cheaper than implementing internal emission reduction measures, especially for industries with high emissions intensity or limited decarbonisation options. Lastly, carbon offsetting allows businesses to participate in global climate action efforts and contribute to broader sustainability initiatives. By supporting offset projects that reduce emissions or promote environmental conservation in communities around the world, companies can make a positive impact beyond their own operations and demonstrate leadership in addressing climate change on a global scale. Overall, the popularity of carbon offsetting in businesses stems from its ability to provide practical, cost-effective, and socially responsible solutions for mitigating carbon emissions while enhancing brand reputation and contributing to broader sustainability goals. But, remember, if not measured and implemented properly with appropriate projects running in parallel then it can be a distraction for businesses. Is Carbon Offsetting Greenwashing? This comes down to various factors, including the motivations behind the practice and the quality of offset projects implemented. Greenwashing refers to the deceptive or misleading use of environmental claims or initiatives to portray a company as more environmentally friendly than it actually is. The truth is that carbon offsetting can be used as a form of greenwashing. For example, if an oil giant bleats on about planting mangrove trees in Madagascar whilst continuing to drill land and sea to drive more profits. This is a business seeking to distract people from what it’s up to by promoting its carbon offsetting activities without making meaningful efforts to reduce its emissions at the source. Carbon offsetting can feed into the notion that emissions can be effectively "neutralised" by buying our way out of the climate crisis alone, without the need for fundamental changes to business practices or infrastructure. This can undermine efforts to implement more sustainable and carbon-efficient solutions within the company's operations. Not all carbon offsetting is greenwashing. When implemented responsibly and transparently, carbon offsetting can play a legitimate role in corporate sustainability strategies. High-quality offset projects, such as those that promote renewable energy, reforestation, or methane capture, can deliver real environmental benefits and contribute to global efforts to combat climate change. To avoid greenwashing, companies should approach carbon offsetting as part of a comprehensive sustainability strategy that includes efforts to reduce emissions at the source, invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and engage stakeholders transparently. They should prioritise high-quality offset projects, adhere to recognised standards and certifications, and ensure that offsetting activities contribute to broader emissions reduction efforts rather than be used as a substitute for meaningful action. Transparent reporting and communication about carbon offsetting activities are also crucial to building trust with stakeholders and avoiding accusations of greenwashing. What Can Businesses do Before Offsetting? Before turning to carbon offsetting, businesses should consider taking proactive steps to reduce their carbon footprint at the source. Some actions they can take include: Understand what you’re dealing with: conduct a comprehensive emissions assessment to identify key sources of emissions. Put your energy into your energy: implement energy efficiency measures to reduce consumption and invest in renewable sources such as solar or wind power. Getting from A to B: optimise transportation and logistics to minimise fuel consumption and emissions. Buy responsibly: adopt sustainable practices in your supply chain, such as sourcing materials locally or using recycled materials. Bin responsibly: implement waste reduction and recycling programs to minimise landfill emissions. It’s a team effort: encourage employees to get involved through sustainability initiatives and training programs. Set goals: target ambitious, science-based emissions reduction and regularly monitor progress towards achieving them. Ultimately, prevention is better than cure. Businesses should prioritise emissions reduction efforts before opting for carbon offsetting. Tackling it this way, businesses can demonstrate a genuine commitment to environmental impact which customers, employees, investors and partners will appreciate.

There’s a big gap between consumer intent and action. Most of us say that we want to live a sustainable life and buy products from companies that are committed to sustainability but, when push comes to shove, only 16% of us are actually changing what we do (Kantar). Why? It’s down to a variety of things but, as a consumer, it boils down to being creatures of habit, short of time and being faced with too much unclear and confusing information. So, if businesses know that their customers are crying out for a solution, what are they doing about it? We see different approaches depending on things like size, sector, location and even ownership. Measuring, reporting and communicating environmental performance can be time-consuming, yet rewarding. It can set businesses apart in their industry, appeal to a new demographic, boost loyalty and increase orders. Some businesses, like those in construction and real estate, need to meet minimum standards to win projects. It’s more of a choice for others, like those in fashion and consumer goods. But, still, things are murky. Greenwashing and greenhushing practices play big parts in the confusing landscape for consumers not knowing what to believe and trust What is greenwashing? Greenwashing is when businesses make false or misleading claims about their environmental performance without backing it up with any hard data. We see this happen when businesses plaster terms such as “green” or “eco-friendly” on packaging without explaining how. Greenhushing - a term coined by Treehugger in 2008 - is when businesses shy away from sharing their environmental initiatives. Businesses may do this to avoid being called out by customers, competitors or regulators. This is them basically making a judgement call between communicating pride in their environmental performance and potential damage to brand reputation. Why is greenwashing bad? Greenwashing is false advertising. It’s businesses being dishonest, or deliberately vague, about the product or service they’re offering; maybe not “what” it is but “how” it is made. Businesses may advertise a specific product or subsidiary as being positive for the environment, whilst their cash cow is damaging the environment. In its worst form, greenwashing is businesses profiteering from the climate crisis. On the flip side, greenhushing has the potential to be just as damaging. If businesses can’t correlate positive environmental initiatives to positive commercial outcomes then it’s unlikely to last and drive real change. If businesses aren’t incentivised to embrace and communicate their initiatives it’s harmful. As Rutger Bregman perfectly puts it “My fear is that their cynicism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy - a nocebo that paralyses us with despair, while temperatures climb unabated.” Ultimately, with both, the outcome is the same: minimal tangible action and the shift towards a more sustainable economy stalls. Is greenwashing illegal? Yes, greenwashing is illegal and is now enforced by many regulators around the world including the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK. The repercussions are typically fines and orders to remove said adverts and/or campaigns. In the lead up to COP26, in 2021, HSBC was ordered by the ASA to remove two adverts over “misleading environmental claims”. More recently companies such as ASOS, Boohoo and George at Asda have been under scrutiny by the regulators. As a result, they have had to sign up to more formal commitments to ensure they bring more clarity when presenting green claims to their customers (gov.uk). Guidelines have been introduced to help businesses avoid greenwashing. The Green Claim Code in the UK and the Green Claims Directive in Europe effectively ban the use of vague environmental claims such as ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘natural’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘climate neutral’, or ‘eco’ unless these claims can be backed up by adequate evidence. Switzerland have gone further and introduced labelling and disclosure rules specifically for the financial industry after it became a minefield for greenwashing. They said they would stop with future regulatory efforts if the industry proves it can behave itself. Greenhushing - in terms of choosing not to communicate about environmental initiatives - is legal for now. This does still come down to the businesses own prerogative. However, a legislation known as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting DIrective (CSRD) is coming in to mandate certain businesses to regularly report on the social and environmental risks they face, and on how their activities impact people and the environment. It will eventually span 50,000 businesses, starting with larger businesses and eventually SMEs too. Why is it important to avoid greenwashing your business? Startups through to global enterprises place emphasis on building loyalty, brand reputation and trust for sales growth, market share, talent acquisition and staff retention. Once lost, trust can be hard to regain and being found to be greenwashing is a quick way for businesses to lose that trust. Not to mention, the financial loss with resources wasted on adverts and campaigns that could be removed as well as fines  by the regulator. It’s just as important to avoid greenhushing. Alarmingly, just one in four companies that have set science-based targets are publicising them [South Pole]. Let’s look at motivations which often, as the CIA defines in their famous MICE method, come down to: money, ideology, compromise and ego. Right now, those businesses that are greenhushing, are trading off between money (financial reward, risk of fines) and ego (potential damage to brand reputation) vs ideology (standing for change, leading the pack, carrying out an environmental initiative to combat the climate crisis). This doesn’t have to be a trade-off and, in fact, we are starting to see a clear case for embedding sustainability into customer buying journeys. For example, through our partnership with Kindred and O2, we’ve seen a remarkable 51% increase in orders with brands that score three or higher out of five. These are businesses that are reasonably well advanced on their sustainability journeys with, at the minimum, science-based emissions reduction targets in place. How to spot greenwashing Look out for greenwashing red flags:businesses making vague environmental claims such as ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘natural’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘climate neutral’, or ‘eco’ with no further information attached. Alarm bells should be ringing if a business’s marketing doesn’t match up with the product they actually offer. For example, shampoo claiming to be ‘biodegradable’ and ‘natural’ in a non-recyclable plastic bottle with artificial ingredients in. A watch-out is around ‘climate neutral’ or ‘carbon neutral’ claims. Sometimes, businesses making these claims are just paying for carbon offsets to neutralise their operations while they carry on with business as usual. Unfortunately, huge multinational businesses operating in high-emitting sectors claiming to be ‘net zero’ happens more than it should. As with most things in life, if it sounds far too good to be true, it most likely is. Trust your instinct. Examples of greenwashing Businesses that are greenwashing may run an advertising campaign packed with vague terms such as ‘eco’, ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ without going on to back it up. They may target specific industry events to attend or sponsor, sometimes with ulterior motives. We saw this at COP28 in Dubai where the third biggest delegation was fossil fuel lobbyists (2,456 compared to 770 delegates from America). Coincidentally, plans to phase out fossil fuels were watered down. Greenhushing is harder to spot, of course, but this will be more commonplace in businesses with environmental causes at their core, where it is interlinked with their business model (triple bottom line: social, environmental, financial) and there’s exec-level accountability rather than an ‘ESG initiative’ running in silo. Businesses making strides with their environmental performance, but keeping it on the down low, may be those that are part of the circular economy, revolutionising their supply chain, committed to science-based emissions reduction targets and prioritising quality, standards and provenance over time and price.

We are thrilled to announce a strategic partnership with Acceleration Partners, the world's premier partnership marketing agency. This collaboration aims to reshape the landscape of conscious consumerism by simplifying the confusing realm of eco labels and combatting greenwashing. Helping provide clarity around environmental performance In a world saturated with information, conscious consumerism has surged, with individuals increasingly seeking sustainable choices. However, the plethora of eco-labels and the prevalence of greenwashing have left consumers bewildered. Recent market research indicates that 72% of consumers find the current landscape of eco labels confusing and overwhelming[1]. We help address this challenge by aggregating relevant data, from business size and sector to emissions and waste data, and distilling it into clear 0-5 scores, known as "Earthmarks." These scores provide a concise and understandable snapshot of a brand's environmental performance. We seamlessly integrate “Earthmarks” into online customer journeys, by utilising partnerships with retail or multi-brand organisations. Our work with Acceleration Partners and their clients aims to empower consumers with the knowledge they need to make sustainable choices effortlessly. Acceleration Partners Acceleration Partners is the premier global partnership marketing agency, setting the standard for how brands efficiently grow and refine their marketing partnerships worldwide. With a focus on Better People, Better Processes, and Better Performance, Acceleration Partners is a trusted agency partner to leading brands. Acceleration Partners works with brands to maximise their profitability through transparent, genuine relationships that create real connections with consumers. By combining forces, Earthmark and Acceleration Partners hope to not only simplify the consumer decision-making process but also foster lasting, performance-based relationships between brands and conscious consumers. Jack Linnett, CEO of Earthmark: "Our partnership with Acceleration Partners is another great milestone. Together, we will cut through the confusion, making it easier for consumers to align their values with their choices." Want to learn more about creating eco-clarity for your consumers? Get in touch.

The Independent, Savings United and Earthmark have won the Social Impact Awards at the Rakuten Golden Links Awards 2024, held on Wednesday 13th in London. The event spotlights outstanding performance across the European affiliate industry and saw a record number of entries this year. The Social Impact Award celebrates the innovative joint initiative from The Independent, Savings United and Earthmark, which launched in February 2023, and gives environmental scores  to brands, allowing consumers to make conscious, informed decisions about their purchases. The rating system appears as ‘Earthmarks’, environmental scores highlighting brands that are taking steps to combat the climate crisis. In addition, The Independent’s vouchers portal highlights sustainable product ranges to consumers in the form of offers, encouraging people to make more climate-friendly choices. The Independent’s Executive Editor Philippa Jenkins comments: “It’s really rewarding to get this recognition, but even more so to be giving practical, clear ways for consumers to make decisions which help rather than damage our world. The climate crisis has been of critical importance to The Independent since we launched, and our aim is to make sustainability as easy and transparent as possible. We give big thanks to the judges for acknowledging the initiative’s vision and impact.” Dan Cohen, Group Commercial Director at Savings United, remarks: “We’re incredibly honoured to have received this award. When we conceived of this idea together, we were excited to have an innovative approach to showing consumers sustainability information regarding their purchases and it’s awesome to see this validated by the judges and Rakuten!” Jack Linnett, co-founder and CEO at Earthmark, says: “A big driver for us at Earthmark is to bridge the gap between intent and action; what people say vs what people do. Most people want to tackle the climate crisis but it’s often made too confusing or hard to do so. We’re excited to see the tide turning and proving that conscious consumerism is possible, at scale and with a solid business case, with Savings United and The Independent. Thank you Rakuten!”

London and Paris, 9 January Sustainability is becoming more and more important to consumers. According to eMarketer, at least 45% of global shoppers are interested in shifting to brands that focus on circular and sustainable practices. One of the biggest hurdles to making more conscious choices? The effort it takes to cut through the noise and verify sustainability claims. Today, it's easy for consumers to base shopping decisions on values like trust and popularity. With Earthmark, they gain trusted insight and confidence that allow them to evaluate environmental performance and make choices with sustainability in mind. B2C Platforms Struggle to Communicate Sustainability to Users It can feel nearly impossible to cut through the confusion of greenwashing, eco-labels, and carbon jargon to understand the true impact a brand has (good or bad!) on the environment. A recent global survey from Dentsu and Microsoft found that 42% of people surveyed wanted “clear, comparable information” on the carbon footprint of products and advertising, and 34% of respondents said they look for independent auditing to validate green claims. Adding environmental scores for brands into places where people already browse, shop, compare, and spend just makes sense, which is why we’re thrilled to announce our newest strategic partnership with ClimateTech company, Earthmark — plus, a time-limited discount for Effinity partners. Who is Earthmark and what do they do? Earthmark is on a mission to empower conscious decision-making for consumers worldwide through clear, comparable environmental data. They aggregate global data from verified, trusted, and published sources and translate it into a single environmental score. They then partner with third-party platforms (like Effinity publishers!) to plug their rating system into existing customer journeys. Depicted as a simple five-leaf rating from 0-5, a brand’s Earthmark shows how they’re performing from an environmental perspective. A one-leaf rating represents businesses that are operating “as usual” with minimal to no effort to mitigate climate change, while a five-leaf rating represents businesses that are optimizing positive impacts through regenerative business practices. Earthmark’s tools search the vast data pool of industry-leading certifications and third-party verified databases to ensure the result they present is the latest, most trustworthy, and robust information available. They consider the industry and size of a business, current and future committed environmental performance (i.e. emissions, carbon intensity, and net-zero targets), as well as select third-party certifications to get an accurate, representative view. Publishers and Advertisers Can Partner with Earthmark through Effinity Partnering with Earthmark allows you to integrate environmental performance into your platform(s), empower your customers to make informed decisions, and improve real business metrics like conversions, average order value, and bounce rates. Enjoy discounted rates as a valued Effinity partner when you sign up through us. Brands already working with Effinity such as Carrefour, Rakuten, Lebara and Pandora already exist in Earthmark’s database of over 12,000 companies. Through Effinity’s partnership with Earthmark, our partners can promote transparency to their users by showcasing their own environmental performance as well as the performance of other brands on their platform. For example, if a partner's platform hosts multiple product from different brands, Earthmark allows users to compare the environmental performance of those different brands just in the same way they’re able to compare other factors such as price, trust and popularity. Here’s how it works: Head to Effinity x Earthmark to provide your information (including your EffiID) Earthmark will get in touch with next steps Once everything is final, API access makes it easy to spotlight brands’ environmental performance across your platform(s)! Questions? Reach out to hello@earthmark.io

London & California,14 July Publishers: Empower Conscious Choices & Increase Conversion with Earthmark Sustainability is becoming more and more important to consumers. According to eMarketer, at least 45% of global shoppers are interested in shifting to brands that focus on circular and sustainable practices. One of the biggest hurdles to making more conscious choices? The effort it takes to verify sustainability claims. Today, it's easy for consumers to base shopping decisions on values like trust and popularity. With Earthmark, they gain trusted insight and confidence that allow them to evaluate environmental performance and make choices with sustainability in mind. B2C Platforms Struggle to Communicate Sustainability to Users It can feel nearly impossible to cut through the confusion of greenwashing, eco-labels, and carbon jargon to understand the true impact a brand has (good or bad!) on the environment. A recent global survey from Dentsu and Microsoft found that 42% of people surveyed wanted “clear, comparable information” on the carbon footprint of products and advertising, and 34% of respondents said they look for independent auditing to validate green claims. Adding environmental scores for brands into places where people already browse, shop, compare, and spend just makes sense. Which is why we’re thrilled to announce our newest strategic partnership with CJ, which gives an exclusive discount for CJ publishers. Who is Earthmark and what do they do? Earthmark is on a mission to empower conscious decision-making for consumers worldwide through clear, comparable environmental data. They aggregate global data from verified, trusted, and published sources and translate it into a single environmental score. They then partner with third-party platforms (like CJ publishers!) to plug their rating system into existing customer journeys. Depicted as a simple five leaf rating from 0-5, a brands’ Earthmark shows how they’re performing from an environmental perspective. A one-leaf rating represents businesses who are operating “as usual” with minimal to no effort to mitigate climate change, while a five-leaf rating represents businesses who are optimising positive impacts through regenerative business practices. Earthmark’s tools search the vast data pool of industry-leading certifications and third-party verified databases to ensure the result they present is the latest, most trustworthy, and robust information available. They consider the industry and size of a business, current and future committed environmental performance (i.e. emissions, carbon intensity, and net-zero targets), as well as select third-party certifications to get an accurate, representative view. Publishers Can Partner with Earthmark through CJ Partnering with Earthmark means you can integrate environmental performance adopt sustainability into your platform(s), empower your customers to make informed decisions, and improve real business metrics like conversions, average order value, and bounce rates. Enjoy discounted rates as a valued CJ partner when you sign up here. Here’s how it works: Head to CJ x Earthmark to provide your information (including your CJ Publisher Company ID) Earthmark will get in touch with next steps Once everything is final, API access makes it easy to spotlight brands’ environmental performance across your platform(s)! -- We couldn’t be more excited to join forces to offer this opportunity to CJ publishers and empower consumers to make more conscious choices. Questions? Reach out to hello@earthmark.io Not yet a CJ publisher? Sign up at cj.com/join to partner with the world’s best brands.

London, 23 March Savings United, The Independent and Earthmark today announce the launch of an innovative initiative on The Independent’s vouchers portal, giving brands’ sustainability ratings. The Independent will now show ‘Earthmarks’ — environmental scores for sustainable, restorative and regenerative advertisers, allowing consumers to make conscious, informed decisions about their purchases. In addition, The Independent’s vouchers portal will now highlight sustainable product ranges to consumers in the form of offers, encouraging people to make more climate-friendly choices. Savings United and The Independent have also worked closely with affiliate networks and suppliers to source new sustainable advertisers, creating market-leading opportunities for consumers to buy better. Campbell Price, The Independent’s e-Commerce Director, says: “The Independent has been committed to environmental issues since launching in 1986, and this is the latest in a long line of innovative initiatives designed to give readers the tools to make change happen. By making it easier to understand which brands are sustainable, consumers will have more power to form decisions which are grounded in helping our planet in a tangible, impactful way.” Dan Cohen, Group Commercial Director at Savings United, says: "At Savings United, one of our pillars is to help consumers make conscious buying decisions and this exciting partnership between The Independent, Earthmark and Savings United is an innovative way to show this to consumers. In conjunction with ‘green coupons’, which shows consumers sustainable product ranges on advertisers’ sites, this provides consumers with the tools to understand and minimise the negative environmental effects of their purchase." Jack Linnett, Co-founder and CEO at Earthmark, says: "It's our mission to help people base decisions on the environmental performance of a brand, just in the same way they can with trust and popularity. We're partnering with trailblazers in the ecommerce and media space to start with and the reach this initiative gives us is huge - it’s a big step forwards in the movement to more conscious decision-making. We're incredibly excited to be partnering with The Independent and Savings United.” About The Independent The Independent has been at the front line of journalism since its launch in 1986, with its purpose to challenge, debate and make change happen way ahead of its time. It is the UK’s largest quality digital news brand and a top 10 news brand in the US, and was the first of the quality news brands to become fully digital (in 2016). Publishing from 12 countries and in six languages, and with a network of global correspondents, The Independent is a truly global news organisation. With a commitment to stay away from pacts with political parties, and with integrity, inclusion, innovation and independence as its guiding principles, The Independent is a dynamic, brand-safe environment for advertisers to reach a huge, loyal audience. For more information, visit independentadvertising.com and follow @IndyAdvertising on Twitter. About Savings United Savings United is the leading couponing white label provider for premium media companies. We offer the leading coupon, content marketplace solutions connecting smart shoppers with their favourite brands in a trustworthy environment. Founded in 2012, Saving United is present in 10 countries worldwide, such as the US, UK, Italy, Spain, France and Brazil. Savings United received the “Global Excellence” Award at the 2022 CJ Awards. Savings-united.com About Earthmark Earthmark Solutions Limited (“Earthmark”) is at the intersection of consumer behaviour and environmental data. We empower consumers to make conscious decisions with simple 0-5 scores, or “Earthmarks”, to represent a business’ environmental performance. Founded in 2021, Earthmark is a fast-growing ClimateTech company aggregating publicly available data from robust sources to help people base decisions on a business’ environmental impact, just in the same way you can with trust and popularity. https://www.earthmark.io