Portland asked for the following independent report to be put together by sustainability expert Anthony Day (publisher of the Sustainable Futures Report):
It should be noted that whilst we agree with many of Anthony’s main points – notably that Carbon Offsetting is not a water-tight, 100% effective method of cancelling transport related CO2 emissions – we do still believe that carbon offsetting has a role to play in decarbonising our economy.
It is certainly true that the use of the word “offset” encourages fuel users to believe that CO2 emissions can simply be eradicated by buying carbon offsets. This is not the case. In truth, the only way to eradicate CO2 emissions is to use less or no fossil fuels.
Therefore we prefer the term “carbon compensation” and our programme is aimed at those fleet operators who have a traditional diesel fleet and the long-term depreciation cycles that go with that fleet of vehicles (ie, a mass overnight switch to non-fossil fuel power is impossible).
For these operators, the Portland carbon compensation programme offers a tangible and credible method of reducing their carbon impact.