We’re changing the way we offset our gas

We’re now changing the way we offset our gas and here’s the reasons why - best explained in the words of our founder Dale Vince.

“At Ecotricity we’re here to change the world, challenge status quos and accepted wisdom - that might sound grand but it’s exactly what we’ve been doing these last 30 years. That’s when we began, it started 30 years ago this year. Since then we’ve consistently pioneered new approaches and technology as Britain made the gradual transition from fossil fuels to green energy. We were actually the first company in the world to offer green electricity, we’ve led the way in both wind and sun and introduced green gas - a major innovation.

Gas is the main topic here — as we’ve worked to overcome the barriers to ‘green gas mills’ and pioneer a new way to make green gas, with grass — we’ve been using carbon credits to offset the fossil gas in our mix supply. We were first persuaded by the UN actually, to do this for Forest Green Rovers, about ten years ago and become the first football, indeed sports club in the world to achieve UN certified carbon neutrality that way. I was a bit sceptical of the concept and I’m always on the look-out for improvements to, well - pretty much everything.

That was ten years ago — right now we’ve made a big decision on carbon credits — we’re transitioning to something more effective.

Carbon credits were always meant to be a temporary solution — while we transitioned to 100% green gas. That’s taken longer than we hoped but I believe now is the right time to transition away from the international carbon offsetting or avoidance market. It’s become a bit of minefield and considerably less robust than it used to be.

So, here’s what we’re going to do instead - lead the way with direct action here in Britain.

We’re ending offsetting through carbon credits for our household gas and instead will replace that with investment in tangible carbon removal projects right here in Britain. Because removing carbon is more effective and reliable (in terms of outcome) — it’s the business.

We’ll invest for these two outcomes;

Rewilding projects – bringing back nature, restoring ecosystems, pulling carbon out of the sky and locking it in the ground.

Enhanced rock weathering – a new technique, harnessing nature’s own chemistry to boost farming, replace chemicals and lock away carbon.

These projects will be based only in the UK and will adhere to the most rigorous standards. They will be nature-based and engineered solutions of the highest integrity. This is a far more dependable and verifiable thing to do - remove carbon from the atmosphere right here. And do a bit of rewilding at the same time.

We’re also investing a further £6m in our first green gas from grass project to accelerate the rollout.

Avoiding carbon emissions was our founding purpose — green energy is key to that. As a country we’ve come from virtually no green electricity on the grid to approaching 50% — in the thirty years since we started. Along the way we’ve created groundbreaking technologies like making diamonds from atmospheric carbon, food from grass is coming next - and we played a founding role in the electric car revolution, building Britain’s first electric car and the national charging infrastructure we needed - another world first. We do this because we believe in it but we’re able to do this because of our unique business model - we call it ‘not for dividend’. All of the money we make goes into our mission, we don’t pay shareholder dividends - that’s not what we’re here for.

We’re pursuing answers in the three biggest areas of carbon emissions: energy, transport, and food. We’re creating room for nature with our rewilding. Our Carbon Bank offers organisations solutions to remove their residual carbon emissions and through our Ministry of Eco Education we’re putting sustainability at the heart of education in over 10K schools and plant based food in over 6K more. Getting stuff done matters to us.

Carbon avoidance credits are coming to an end globally I reckon — it might take a few years, but carbon removal is far better. And through this we’ll create more impact and do it right here in Britain. Rather than fund international projects with a questionable outcome.

That’s it, I’m excited to share this news and also that we together (you and us) are able to pioneer this new form of carbon removal, right here in Britain.”

Dale Vince OBE

Founder of Ecotricity