Partners Levi McAllister and Pamela Wu wrote an article for Project Finance International discussing opportunities from and potential regulation of carbon offsets—a type of environmental attribute used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere poised to be a resource for companies’ climate change mitigation plans. The article explains that a carbon offset stands out from other environmental attributes for its accessibility to all industries and a “largely non-existent regulatory structure that governs its purchase and sale.”
“Indeed, those two characteristics combined raise questions among corporate purchasers about whether purchased carbon offsets accurately reflect what the purchaser believes them to be and whether the purchaser can rely on such offsets to successfully demonstrate a reduced carbon footprint,” the article notes.