Glad you asked!

Carbon removal projects remove CO2 from the atmosphere or from the ocean. They are repairing the damage that has already been done. Reduction / avoidance projects prevent CO2 or other greenhouse gasses from ending up in the atmosphere in the first place. They are preventing the damage from being done.

We all know that prevention is better than cure, but in carbon offsetting it's not that simple. When it comes to your own carbon footprint, it is indeed always better to reduce your own emissions as much as you can, and only then look at offsetting. However, when we think about which type of offset to use, removal offsets are much better than reduction offsets.

Why is carbon removal so much better than reduction?

With reduction projects, you're paying somebody else to reduce their emissions instead of you. This automatically leads to a lot of questions. How do we know how much they would have emitted if we didn't pay for it? Maybe they would have reduced their carbon footprint, even if we didn't pay them?  If we pay them to reduce their emissions, does that take away their incentive to reduce their emissions without the payment?

Take the example of reduced deforestation credits. These credits are generated by projects that protect forests from being cut down, thereby ensuring that the carbon in those trees remains locked in. However, how certain is it that the trees would have been cut down without the protection? And will the trees not be cut down as soon as the money flow and protection stops? If the trees are cut down at a later point, or burn down in a forest fire, does that make all credits that have been generated during the years of protection worthless? (spoiler: it does)

Carbon removal projects are more straightforward and provide better guarantees in the impact that they generate. All these projects remove carbon from the atmosphere or the oceans, either using natural or engineered methods, and somehow lock this carbon away. The main differentiator in quality is the stability and duration of storage. The longer the carbon can remain stored away without leaking back into the atmosphere, the better.

At Bigfoot, we only work with removal projects that keep carbon stored away for more than 100 years.

Let's be clear, trees are awesome. Try to hug one every now and then.

However, at Bigfoot we believe that trees are not a suitable solution when it comes to compensating for your own emissions.

While trees are a very easy and efficient way to capture carbon from the atmosphere, they're not a super reliable place to store the captured carbon on the long term. If trees get cut down, destroyed by diseases, or burnt down in forest fires, the carbon they've captured during their lifetime is released again into the atmosphere. It's also difficult to calculate exactly how much carbon is captured by the trees in the first place, although this is getting easier as science and technology develops further.

In the case of forest protection, there are a bunch of other potential issues, from overestimating the risk of deforestation, to moving the problem to another forest, or even harming indigenous rights to live off their lands.

The bottom line: Trees are great. Plant them, protect them, hug them, but don't expect it to compensate for your carbon footprint (not even the hugging).

We mean it.

Ok, ok, we hear you. It’s important, so let’s break it down.

First off, Bigfoot prioritizes carbon removal projects over avoidance/reduction ones. To understand why that matters, check out the answer to the first question.

When selecting which carbon removal projects to partner with, Bigfoot sticks to three main principles:

Verification: All of Bigfoot’s partner projects are either certified or in the process of being certified according to internationally recognized standards with third-party auditing.

Permanence: Removing CO2 is great, but it’s not enough—it needs to be stored securely, so it doesn’t sneak back into the atmosphere. Every project we work with guarantees storage for at least 100 years, but ideally, we aim for way longer.

Additionality: Last but not least, the project must prove that it needs carbon removal credit sales to be viable and that the carbon removal wouldn’t have happened without those sales. If it would have, then there's not much value in the credits, is there?

By sticking to these three key requirements, we make sure that every project we offer has a real, proven impact on the climate.

While all carbon credits are measured in tonnes or kilograms of CO2, not all credits are created equal. And when given the choice, always go for quality over quantity.

Picture this:

Scenario 1:
You find some cheap junk carbon offsets that cost €2 per metric ton, but they have little to no positive impact on the climate. You calculate your footprint to be 10,000 kg per year, so it would only cost you €20 a year to "offset" it! Amazing, right? At this price, you decide to offset 200% of your footprint and, with all the money you've saved, go buy a new car and book round-trip flights around the world!

Scenario 2:
Now, let's look at proper carbon removal, which removes CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it away for a long time. These high-quality projects cost €500 per metric ton. So, with a 10,000 kg carbon footprint, it would cost you €5,000 per year to compensate for it. Ouch...  At this price, you decide to start by removing 1,000 kg of your footprint with a monthly subscription of €45. You also commit to reducing your footprint to 7,000 kg next year, aiming to buy 2,000 kg of carbon removals as you go. You'll keep lowering your footprint and increasing your removals until you reach carbon neutrality after 4 years, with a footprint of 3,500 kg and removals to match.

Sure, you're free to go for Scenario 1 (though you’ll have to find another platform for that), but if you actually care about making an impact, we highly recommend taking the second path.

There are huge differences between different carbon offsetting methods and projects. Typically, the biggest price gap is between reduction and removal projects, and for good reason. Removing CO2 that’s already in the atmosphere is a lot harder than preventing emissions in the first place—and also a lot more impactful.

Even within carbon removal projects, there are several key factors that separate the good from the great. One major example is the duration and stability of storage. If the carbon that's captured is likely to be re-released back into the atmosphere in a year, well... that makes the removal pretty much useless, doesn’t it?