After carbon accounting: Lower emissions. Offset remaining emissions.
Based on reliable data, transparent reduction pathways and credible offsetting.
Two steps. One logic. How reduction and compensation are connected.
In day-to-day business, it is rarely clear what can be avoided – and what cannot. Decisions often sit between environmental goals, economic realities and social considerations.
This is why, at natureOffice, we do not see reduction and compensation or offsetting as a fixed sequence, but as two paths that should be considered responsibly and together.
It is often expected that companies reduce everything first before turning to compensation.
This is an understandable expectation. However, it only partially reflects business reality.
For this reason, we consider it sensible to think about reduction and compensation jointly:
with a clear priority on reduction – and an open, honest approach to what cannot yet be avoided.
Why this approach holds up
A look at the foundations on which reduction and compensation have been built for many years. Or: what international climate policy, project financing and business practice have in common.
Internationally recognised
Compensation is not a marketing tool, but part of international climate policy. Market-based mechanisms were already established under the Kyoto Protocol as a complement to emissions reduction.
Enables additional climate projects
Many climate projects (carbon offset projects) only come into being because certificate revenues make their financing possible –
for example natural forest reforestation or renewable energy projects. Without these additional revenues, they would not be realised.
Impact where reduction does not (yet) take effect
Not all emissions can be avoided in the short term. Compensation creates impact where technical, social or economic limits currently exist.
A conscious approach to emissions
Compensation is not about pushing emissions aside. It is part of a conscious and structured way of dealing with what emissions still remain today.
Frequently asked questions about our approach
Some of our thoughts on how to classify reduction, compensation and the trade-offs in between.
Because day-to-day business rarely follows an idealised logic.
Reduction measures take time: technical changes, investment cycles, supply chains and management-level decisions. During this time, emissions continue to occur – regardless of how consistently their reduction is being pursued.
A strictly sequential approach – first reduce, then compensate – appears clear at first glance. In practice, however, it often falls short.
Thinking about compensation in parallel enables companies to take responsibility for emissions already today, while reduction pathways are being developed and implemented. What matters less is the sequence, and more the traceability:
What is being reduced? What remains? And for what reasons?This question cannot be answered in general terms.
There are scientific recommendations, target pathways and political frameworks. What does not exist is a clear-cut threshold beyond which an emission is considered “no longer reducible”.
In practice, companies operate within trade-offs:
between environmental goals, economic viability, technical feasibility and social impacts. Replacing a machine earlier may make sense from a reporting perspective – but be ecologically questionable. Restricting mobility can reduce emissions, while at the same time disadvantaging employees.
Reduction is therefore not a fixed endpoint, but a decision-making process that should be reviewed and further developed on a regular basis. This is exactly where we come in: not with dogma, but with context.Many countries in which climate protection projects are implemented
have historically contributed only marginally to climate change. At the same time, they are often particularly affected by its impacts.
Revenues from certificates enable investments
that would otherwise not be realised, or only much later – such as natural forest reforestation, renewable energy or clean cooking technologies. These projects do not only deliver climate impact, but also create local value, infrastructure and employment.
In this context, compensation is not an “indulgence”, but a financing mechanism that helps to partially balance global disparities.No – and this is precisely why we consider both together.
Compensation does not replace reduction. Nor does it cancel it out. When used properly, it makes visible which emissions still remain today – and prevents them from being ignored or downplayed.
A parallel approach keeps both in view:
the possibilities for reduction as well as the emissions that currently remain.
Not perfect.
But realistic.