EasyJet announces it will stop buying carbon offsets. Good news? Well, it’s complicated

In late 2019, easyJet signed a contract to offset all its CO₂ emissions. EasyJet has now announced that it is scrapping its carbon offsetting scheme at the end of 2022.

That sounds like good news.

It is. Over the three year period, easyJet bought a total of 8.7 million carbon offsets. While easyJet is a bit shy about saying how much it paid for the carbon offsets, it’s all money that could have gone instead on actually reducing its emissions. And of course easyJet would have had to buy an awful lot more offsets if the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t massively reduced the number of people flying.

Which projects did easyJet buy offsets from?

In 2020 and 2021, easyJet bought offsets from the Bale Mountains Eco-Region REDD+ project (Yedeni) in Ethiopia, the Madre de Dios Amazon REDD+ Project in Peru, and a series of wind power projects.

Hasn’t Madre de Dios has appeared a few times on REDD-Monitor?

Oh yes. It might be the worst REDD project in the world.

Crikey. There’s a lot of competition for that award.

Indeed. Nevertheless, in 2020 and 2021, easyJet retired more than 1.1 million carbon offsets from the Madre de Dios Amazon REDD+ Project. The project consists of two logging concessions, one of which overlaps the territory of the Mashco Piro — Indigenous Peoples who are living in voluntary isolation.

So it’s safe to say that no process of free, prior and informed consent was carried out before the start of this REDD project?

No. And the logging companies even argued against a government proposal to expand an Indigenous Reserve bordering their logging concessions. For two decades the regional Indigenous federation, FENAMAD, has been trying to include part of what is now the REDD project as an off-limits reserve to protect the rights of the uncontacted Mashco Piro.

The logging was supposedly “sustainable forest management”. In 2007, both logging companies were certified as well-managed by the Forest Stewardship Council. But in April 2022, FSC blocked and suspended Maderera Río Yaverija S.A.C. (Maderyja) following an investigation started in 2019. FSC states that Maderyja was “unable to justify the volume mismatches and false claims detected over the course of this investigation”.

How did the logging companies justify selling carbon credits from forest that they are logging? Doesn’t logging damage the forest?

All REDD projects create a counterfactual baseline of what would have happened in the absence of the project. This is impossible to verify, because the project did go ahead. Obviously project developers have an interest in saying that deforestation would be huge without the project because then they can sell more carbon credits.

An investigation last year by the Guardian and Greenpeace UK’s investigative journalism project, Unearthed, exposed the fake baseline used by the Madre de Dios project to exaggerate the amount of deforestation that supposedly would have happened in the absence of the project.

Has Verra withdrawn future sales of carbon offsets from this project?

You’re joking, right? Instead of investigating the criticisms of the project, the Guardian notes that Verra “fiercely criticised” the Guardian’s and Unearthed’s findings. Verra’s response illustrates that Verra assumes at all times that its standard setting, methodologies, and assessments are rigorous. When evidence shows this not to be the case, Verra always rejects the evidence.

Verra also has a conflict of interest. It charges a levy on all carbon offsets sold from its registry. Limiting the number of carbon offsets available would limit Verra’s income.

When journalist David Hill asked Verra about the Indigenous Reserve, Verra’s spokesperson appeared not to understand the problem:

Decisions about the boundaries of territorial reserves are a matter for the government in question. At present, the boundaries of the territorial reserve and the project area do not overlap and have never overlapped.

How did easyJet end up buying carbon offsets from this project?

A company called EcoAct sold the offsets to easyJet. EcoAct describes itself as “Your climate experts”. It’s a “climate consultancy” and project developer. It’s been around for more than 16 years. It has more than 300 employees. In 2017, EcoAct Group took over Carbon Clear Limited, a UK-based offsetting company. WWF, Carrefour, Daimler, HSBC, Chanel, Coca Cola, and NatWest are among its clients.

EcoAct is owned by Atos, a French multinational information technology corporation.

Atos rings a bell. Who are they?

Atos won a £400 million contract from the UK government to administer assessments of whether people claiming benefits were fit for work. In 2013, MPs revealed that 1,300 people had died after being told they should start preparing to go back to work. Another 2,200 died before their assessment was finished.

Oh dear. Anyway, I assume that EcoAct at least has stopped selling offsets from the Madre De Dios project?

Er no. EcoAct’s website makes no mention of the fact that the REDD project area is being logged, that part of the project area overlaps with the Mashco Piro’s territory, or that the FSC has suspended and blocked one of the logging companies.

Still, it’s good that easyJet has pulled out of buying offsets from this horrifying project, isn’t it?

Hang on. I’ve not finished with EcoAct yet.

Oh sorry. Go ahead.

In 2021, EcoAct retired 15.5 million carbon offsets on behalf of its clients. If you can bear it, here’s a cringingly awful conversation between EcoAct’s Stuart Lemmon and easyJet’s Director of Sustainability, Jane Ashton.

Lemmon asks about easyJet’s offseting programme, which he describes as “a very bold approach”. After a bit of toing and froing Ashton says,

There’s often critics who will say it enables business to carry on as usual. And I hope that the message from easyJet is quite genuinely, there are huge programmes of work and focus on reducing emissions and driving efficiencies, and also on partnerships for new technologies. But as an interim step this is something very powerful that we can do in the here and now.

So, er, offsetting enables business to carry on as usual.

Does EcoAct have any due diligence screening process to weed out the worst projects?

They do. It’s called the EcoScore©. It has seven categories of risk, covering the financial and political situation in the country, where the project developer is based and how much experience they have, what certification standards are used, the delivery likelihood, technological and environmental risks, and reputational and legal risks.

Wow.

The EcoScore© screening results in between 20 and 25% of projects being excluded each year. EcoAct even tries to visit the projects.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how the EcoScore© rated the Madre de Dios Amazon REDD+ project?

Wouldn’t it just. I’ve asked EcoAct for a copy. I’m not holding my breath.

As I was saying, it’s good that easyJet has stopped buying offsets from this horrible REDD project, isn’t it?

Yes.

I can feel a “but” coming on…

But that doesn’t make easyJet a “green airline” company.

Here’s how the Financial Times reported the announcement:

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said the money would be better spent on new technologies, ranging from more fuel efficient aircraft to switching to greener fuels and untried technology using hydrogen to power aircraft.

So instead of buying offsets, EasyJet will be investing its money into technologies that actually reduce emissions.

Really?

Well probably not, actually. “Greener fuels” for aviation often means biofuels. There are several problems with biofuels, including the vast area of land needed to grow the crops to provide the biofuels.

A recent report by HEÑÓI, Stay Grounded, Biofuelwatch, and Global Forest Coalition gives a good example of what’s wrong with biofuels. The report looks at the proposed Omega Green project in Paraguay. When completed it will be one of the world’s largest biofuel refineries in the world and will primarily produce aviation biofuels.

What crops will be used to feed the biofuel refinery?

Soybean oil, animal fats from Paraguay’s beef industry, and pongamia oil.

No doubt you’re going to tell me that soybean oil means monocultures of soy like those that destroyed vast areas of the Amazon rainforest.

Yes. Industrial soybean agriculture in Brazil has expanded from 25 million hectares in 2012 to almost 40 million hectares in 2022. The cerrado savanna is also under threat as well as the Amazon rainforest. More than half of the cerrado has already been converted to soybean plantations.

In Paraguay, the Omega Green report notes,

Soy production has led to land grabbing, deforestation and the poisoning of soils, water and air; it displaces people, sickens and kills local residents and farm animals through pesticide poisoning, and destroys subsistence crop production.

OK, but animal fats are a by-product of the beef industry. Isn’t making use of a product that would otherwise go to waste?

Beef production is an important part of Paraguay’s economy. The country is the sixth largest exporter of beef in the world. There are twice as many cows as people in Paraguay. And cattle ranching mainly takes place in the Paraguayan Chaco, one of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet.

In 2020, Earthsight put out a report documenting how cattle ranches have illegally cleared forest in the territory of the Ayoreo Totbeigosode, Indigenous People living in voluntary isolation. Earthsight’s investigations tracked cattle hides from slaughterhouses buying cattle from these ranches. From there the hides were exported to tanneries in Italy. Several car companies, including BMW and Jaguar Land Rover, source leather from Italian tanneries linked to this scandal.

Further research from Earthsight and El Surtidor exposed corruption within government agencies in Paraguay, and a “broader culture of impunity that spans the entire government, and which comes from the top”.

And, anyway, cattle ranching is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. And we should follow your example and go vegan.

I’m delighted to see you’ve been paying attention. You missed out “Stop Flying!” though:

What on earth is pongamia oil?

Pongamia oil is produced from the seeds of Millettia pinnata. The tree is native to Asia, Australia, and Pacific Islands. In 2021, the Brazilian company ECB Group that is behind the Omega Green project announced a 30-year deal with a Dutch company called Investancia to grow Milettia pinata to supply the biofuel plant. Investancia has started to plant 125,000 hectares in the Paraguayan Chaco, where the territory of the Ayoreo people is. Investancia calls its pongamia oil “reforestation oil”.

Wait. Monocultures of exotic trees are not “reforestation”. Plantations are not forests!

Exactly.

OK, while easyJet may not be planning to buy its biofuels from Omega Green, it highlights the fact that biofuels are clearly not the answer to the aviation industry’s pollution. What about hydrogen-powered aircraft?

As the Financial Times noted, this is “untried technology”. EasyJet has a partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop hydrogen combustion engine technology. But there has been a long history of attempts at producing hydrogen aircraft, so far without developing commercial operations.

The aim easyJet’s partnership with Rolls-Royce is “to demonstrate that hydrogen has the potential to power a range of aircraft from the mid-2030s onwards”. An engine will be ground tested this year.

So there’s still a long way to go.

Airbus says it has “the ambition to develop the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft by 2035”.

And in the meantime, easyJet plans to expand its operations?

The aviation industry anticipates expanding from two billion passengers per year globally in 2022 to 10 billion by 2050. EasyJet, predictably wants to be part of this growth. In 2019, when easyJet announced its offsetting plans, the company launched flights between Birmingham and Edinburgh, two cities that are connected by fast rail routes. EasyJet also expanded its capacity by more than 10% in 2019.

When the Guardian reported on easyJet’s emissions plans it initially reported that, “EasyJet plans to curb CO₂ emissions by 35% by 2035 as part of its new roadmap”. A day later, this was amended to read, “EasyJet plans to curb CO₂ emissions by 35% per kilometre by 2035 as part of its new roadmap” (emphasis added).

It’s a crucial difference. If easyJet increases its number of flights sufficiently it could actually see an increase in overall emissions by 2035. Given the speed at which the climate crisis is developing, we need urgent actions to reduce emissions dramatically now.

EasyJet pulling out of offsetting should be welcomed though.

Yes. But from 1 January 2023, easyJet will offer a voluntary offsetting option for its customers, thus sending out the completely counterproductive message that flying is fine, as long as you offset your emissions. The reality is that we cannot offset our way out of the climate crisis.

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