Negative Emissions Accounting

What is NEA and why we shouldn't neglect it

Negative emission accounting or NEA is the accounting process that needs to be done in order to know how much carbon has been removed and stored over time by a climate project. It has largely been neglected in the VCM which leads not only to false claims but also creates bad incentives in terms of quality for the entire market.

You can't delete emissions

One first needs to understand that all carbon storage comes with a time-value. That means that you can't delete your emissions by offsetting them. They will only be temporarily removed from the atmosphere. This is sometimes called permanence, though we prefer to call it durability.

Just as you should monitor your emissions, you should also monitor your negative emissions.

Especially nature-based solutions can be quite volatile in the amount of carbon they store. A forest for example can also release carbon in the atmosphere through wildfires, diseases and other processes.

Dynamic Accounting

In order to display the value of such volatile assets, we developed Carbon Shares. Carbon Shares are able to adjust their carbon value. This is done through the use of digital MRV technologies such as remote sensing. It enables anyone to know the "real-time" value of the carbon stored in a specific project. We call this dynamic accounting.

--> Learn more about MRV