Additionality

‘Additionality’ is an essential component of any carbon offset project. This means that the project must not have gone ahead but for the investment of the funds from carbon offset clients; it must represent new activity over and above the baseline or ‘business as usual’ scenario. In order  to make this easy to demonstrate and transparent, co2balance Southern Africa only invests its clients’ funds  in projects that are at least 50% funded by carbon offset payments. Some other organisation will argue that a project is additional where just a few percent of a project’s capital originates from offset funding. We at co2balance Southern Africa do not find this a credible approach, hence our minimum 50% rule. We are not aware of any other offset provider with such a high standard and in fact most of our projects are entirely funded through carbon offset finance.

As well as the visible additionality, we provide further assurance through third party auditors who validate our claims.