The number of consumers actively integrating sustainability in their purchase decisions continues to increase. This has led to the rise of a popular claim in advertising: carbon neutrality.

While we understand that buying carbon neutrality labels was initially intended to guide consumer behavior, assessing carbon neutrality has proven to be very difficult on company level and even more complex on product level. Yet, traditional players often sell these labels — without requesting all needed data, and without disclosing baseline assumptions of both the carbon footprint assessment and the measures used to neutralize the greenhouse gas emissions.

There are various problems when claiming carbon neutrality:

1. True carbon neutrality requires an accurate carbon footprint assessment. However, these assessments can be highly complex, especially for large companies with extensive multinational supply chains.
2. Achieving carbon neutrality through carbon offsetting is often used as an excuse to not invest as much in decarbonization strategies.
3. Carbon neutrality claims are often issued without a sufficient background check of the company’s emitting activities — or even the company itself. A recent Zeit article vividly showcased how easily a fake company was able to receive carbon neutrality labels by various well-known climate consultancies.
4. Not every removed or avoided ton of CO₂ is the same: The quality of carbon credits differs heavily and is rarely transparent. For one thing, brokers and climate consultants sometimes take tremendous fees for issuing carbon neutrality claims, with only a small share of the price paid actually flowing into the projects. Additionally, a lack of transparency often makes it hard for stakeholders to accurately quantify how many of the invested resources actually benefit the climate project.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the problem and are left unsure of what to believe. Being exposed to countless carbon neutrality claims, they are struggling to distinguish real climate efforts from greenwashing and are increasingly demanding companies to be transparent about their climate actions. Public authorities and consumer activist groups are also picking up on the topic, as seen in the recent allegations against large companies in Germany.

So what’s the right way to go then? We’ve seen a growing number of companies being unsure about how to best drive climate impact. Pay a climate consultancy, receive a climate claim, and hope nobody notices how little of the money actually benefited the climate? Or maybe stay away from carbon compensation once and for all to be safe?

Well, please don’t. Besides rigorous decarbonization, carbon removal is crucial to mitigate climate change, as shown by the recent IPCC report. Experts agree that the global economy needs to reach net-zero by 2050. However, it is hardly possible for most companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero in the near future.

Hence, we need carbon compensation, but it needs to be done right. And this is exactly why we founded CEEZER: we enable companies to have real climate impact — and to compensate carbon without exposing themselves to the legal risks of greenwashing.

And how do we make that possible?

• Everything we do is data-based: we have millions of data points ensuring an accurate, scientifically-backed impact analysis.
• We rigorously screen every single project offering credits on our platform.
• We enable end-to-end transparency through direct contact to project developers. We offer the infrastructure, and cut out the middlemen.
• We therefore also do not have any hidden cost: any margins or fees that will not directly flow into the project are clearly stated in the buying process.
• For every purchased carbon credit, you get the original certificate that traces the credit all the way back to the source.

But we’re not only meticulous when it comes to our projects, we also make sure that the companies we work with are being serious about their ambitions:

• We review climate strategy and impact metrics for every single project developer and buyer.
• Everyone we work with has to pass a Know-your-customer (KYC) assessment and follow the same guidelines of how compensation can be done right.

We thereby guarantee that all the resources we say benefit the climate actually do so. And we will provide you with the original credit certificates.

What is more, we provide you with the tools to maximize the impact of every dollar spent. Please get in touch or book a demo today if you would like to know more.