Carbon Offset Market to be Clarified
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to clarify legal obligations under the Trade Practices Act for businesses involved in carbon offset activities.
There is a need for a single standard to limit confusion and misleading behaviour in the emerging market.
The ACCC said consumers and businesses are facing difficulty in understanding and verifying claims and there are concerns consumers are facing “misleading and deceptive conduct”.
This is an area which is certainly very confused at present. There are also concerns that some companies may be establishing carbon neutral targets as an excuse to continue polluting activities without attempting to reduce their environmental impact.
I think that there are a large number of activities that need to continue even though they generate a large amount of carbon emissions and in this case, so long as they are trying to reduce where they can, it is responsible to pay someone else to offset what is unavoidable. Hopefully new technology will be developed that can reduce those emissions further.
I see the role of Government to have legislative incentives to reduce atmospheric pollution but also to “get out of the way” and remove red tape to allow innovation.
Technorati Tags: ACCC, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, businesses involved in carbon offset, carbon offset, carbon emissions, atmospheric pollution
Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress! If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.
The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .
