Why carbon offsets are now A GOOD THING
There’s a lot of confusion around the effectiveness of carbon offsets, so let’s clear the air. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to climate change are mainly focused on trees and forestry. There are 2 main problems with forestry offsets: 1. They take too long to show a net carbon benefit, up to 40 years, and the forests are usually gone by 10 years, through felling or fire. 2. The carbon is only considered fully sequestered if it’s kept out of the atmosphere for 100 years or more. Our vision is for industrial hemp to be the world’s choice of NbS to stop climate change. Industrial hemp absorbs much more CO2 per acre, it’s harvested in 5 months or less, and our model locks the carbon away in hempcrete, permanently and safely. As a bonus, hempcrete is used to provide sustainable housing and buildings. No comparison with legacy forestry offsets. And, if that wasn’t enough, industrial hemp promotes biodiversity, including the provision of pollen for bees and other pollinators well into autumn, when no other pollen sources are available.
Don’t offsets just kick the can down the road?
Some critics of offsets say that we should be concentrating our efforts on building a zero-carbon economy, not giving people an easy way out of making lifestyle or economic changes. We say to this: Get real! We leave things until the last minute, that’s the human condition. If we keep throwing Gigatonnes (billions of tonnes) of CO2 into the atmosphere, we’ll all be dead before there’s any chance of a zero-carbon economy. People are not going to change their behaviors any time soon. People will continue to fly, drive petrol and diesel cars, rely on diesel transportation of goods (ships and trucks), and store endless amounts of their digital lives in data centers.
We’re real about the problem. And the solution. Our pitch to consumers and companies: We’re here to help you make a real, measurable difference to your CO2 emissions while you transition to a zero-carbon future. Life. Goes. On.
Short-term benefits of Hempoffset carbon offsets
Because industrial hemp grows so quickly it really is disrupting perceptions around NbS offset.
- Industrial hemp is harvested in 5 months, with 3 crops a year possible in hot climates. Results. Fast!
- Hemp doesn’t require pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizer, and needs only about 50% of the water of other crops.
- Hemp absorbs CO2 from the air in real-time. As a data center is operating. While you fly somewhere amazing. The impact and benefits are immediate.
- The provision of zero-carbon, sustainable construction materials that lock carbon away for centuries.
Long-term benefits of Hempoffset carbon offsets
By growing industrial hemp at scale globally, the Hempoffset platform will not just remove enough CO2 from the air to stop climate change, but its multiplier effects will enable a fabulous, new world.
- A measurable reduction in the amount of land used for livestock and dairy.
- A measurable reduction in the amount of CO2 generated by cement/concrete production.
- Benefits for bees and other pollinators, as well as overall biodiversity worldwide.
- New industries in ethanol and biodiesel which will displace fossil fuels, and take money out of military budgets.
- Hemp bioplastics will allow us to use plastic as we do now, but without using oil (virtually all plastics are made from fossil fuel oil).
- Hemp rocket fuel can take us to Mars and beyond, in starships made from hemp carbon fiber.
Let’s do this!
Learn more
Read our post on why hempcrete is the construction material we need now.
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Latest posts
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Founder and CEO at Hempoffset.com and TaoClimate.com.
Hempoffset works with hemp growers and makers worldwide, to capture and sequester CO2 at scale, while building a sustainable world.
Tao Climate works with companies and individuals that want to measure, minimise and manage their carbon footprints. Tao Climate is the way to carbon neutral.
We are proud members of the Google Startups for Sustainable Development program.
