--- title: How to Fix Carbon Offsets description: Nature-based carbon offsets have taken a great deal of criticism. Kelly Kizzier of the Bezos Earth Fund responds. canonical: https://time.com/6317130/can-we-fix-carbon-offsets/ author: Alejandro de la Garza article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-09-25T12:32:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:54.194Z article:section: Climate og:title: Can We Fix Carbon Offsets? og:description: Nature-based carbon offsets have taken a great deal of criticism. Kelly Kizzier of the Bezos Earth Fund responds. og:url: https://time.com/6317130/can-we-fix-carbon-offsets/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt137dd97937ed6b8f/698a40a916d8840ceec3c429/GettyImages-1243781598.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 7804 og:image:height: 4390 og:image:alt: EGYPT-ENVIRONMENT-NATURE-CLIMATE-CONSERVATION-MANGROVE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Can We Fix Carbon Offsets? twitter:description: Nature-based carbon offsets have taken a great deal of criticism. Kelly Kizzier of the Bezos Earth Fund responds. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt137dd97937ed6b8f/698a40a916d8840ceec3c429/GettyImages-1243781598.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Can We Fix Carbon Offsets? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=eaedf46f-4fb0-4536-a16a-12480ed68a5a&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Future of Nature-Based Carbon Offsets [Watch (HLS stream): The Future of Nature-Based Carbon Offsets](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/gJc0XMRX.m3u8) (6:10)  _Published 2023-09-22. Corporations, startups, and nonprofits invested in the idea of offsetting emissions by preserving natural landscapes and planting trees have a problem. In recent months, a slew of media reports from outlets like Bloomberg and The Guardian have accused many prominent players in the sector of vastly overstating the purported carbon benefits of projects intending to use natural systems to compensate for human emissions. That, in turn, has increasingly called into question the validity of net zero claims from major polluters based on those kinds of offsets._  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Sep 25, 2023 12:32 PM UTC  A state-sponsored mangrove reforestation project in the Hamata area south of Marsa Alam along Egypt's southern Red Sea coast on Sept. 16, 2022. A state-sponsored mangrove reforestation project in the Hamata area south of Marsa Alam along Egypt's southern Red Sea coast on Sept. 16, 2022. Khaled Desouki—AFP/Getty Images  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Sep 25, 2023 12:32 PM UTC Corporations, startups, and nonprofits invested in the idea of offsetting emissions by preserving natural landscapes and planting trees have a problem. In recent months, media reports from outlets like [_Bloomberg_](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-14/popular-carbon-credits-fail-to-offset-emissions-probe-shows)and [_The Guardian_](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe)have questioned many prominent players in the sector of overstating the purported carbon benefits of projects intending to use natural systems to compensate for human emissions. That, in turn, has increasingly called into question the validity of net zero claims from major polluters based on those kinds of offsets. Some researchers and green advocates have called the entire practice a form of[ greenwashing](https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/news/too-many-carbon-offset-claims-are-greenwashing-us-into-a-hotter-world/), or an effort to cover up continued pollution. Fortescue, a major mining company based in Australia, has gone so far as to declare that it will [cease using](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-20/billionaire-forrest-s-fortescue-to-stop-using-carbon-offsets) carbon offsets, instead focusing on direct emissions cuts within their operations to meet their climate goals. Kelly Kizzier, Director of Corporate Action and Markets at the Bezos Earth Fund, is an influential voice in the offset space. She sat down with TIME in Manhattan during New York Climate Week. _The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity._ **I think you would probably agree that we can’t ship** [**boatloads of natural gas**](https://totalenergies.com/media/news/communiques-presse/total-delivers-its-first-carbon-neutral-lng-cargo) **and say that projects in the Amazon rainforest will offset it. Are there reasons companies should continue investing in those sorts of carbon sequestration projects?** I think the question is how do we drive investment in \[helping\] the climate and nature. The science is pretty clear, and the data is very clear that we need to accelerate investment, private sector investment in particular, in the environment and nature by something like 700% by 2030\. We have a limited number of tools to do that. And carbon markets are one of the main tools that we have to do it. Some new innovative tools are emerging, but I don't know why we would throw any tools away at this moment. I would rather focus on fixing what's wrong, and making it a viable and robust solution with integrity, then throw it out altogether. It is a tool that has been around since the early 2000s. We've learned a lot. There's an incredible amount of transparency. And I think, starting with a blank sheet of paper is going to take too long. And we don't have that time. **Why is this sector on the defensive? Do you think that the criticism that’s been leveled recently has been valid?** I think what's happened is a lot of the NGOs and sometimes even government-backed standards and guidance in the emerging space have focused very much on the question of greenwashing. And a lot of the safeguards and rules that they have put in place have been put in place to thwart greenwashing. A lot of that is valid. I think what hasn't happened enough is that teaching to the top of the class. I think what's not happening is an acceleration of the leaders, those that are willing to invest. You have to create the enabling environment for leading companies to be able to not only reduce their emissions within their supply chain, but also to invest beyond their supply chain in nature and energy. I think you can't just teach to the bottom of the class and expect the kind of results we need for climate and nature. You really have to also enable leadership through investments in climate and nature. I think what's emerged as a result is we're seeing evidence of “green hushing,” where companies are finding it less risky to do nothing than to be ambitious and fail. **I think the biggest criticism is that companies use nature-based carbon offsets as a reason not to de-invest in fossil fuels or to fix their own supply chains. So how do we stop people from doing that?** I think you have to set up expectations, standards, and guidance that make it clear that this is a “yes, and,” scenario. It's not an “either/or.” Companies must both reduce their emissions and invest beyond their own value chains. **Does that mean there needs to be a shift away from describing those investments in nature as literally offsetting corporate emissions, and instead describe them in terms of positive benefits for local ecosystems and that sort of thing?** What we find is we can unlock literally billions of dollars of investment if the \[investment\] vehicle has high quality, if it counts towards climate goals, and if it can achieve impact at scale. So I think as long as the system and the standards we are setting out achieve those three things to unlock that investment that we so critically need, we can be innovative. **Is there anything that worries you going forward in the offset space?** I have a few that are sort of equal in priority. I worry that we're going to let perfect be the enemy of good, and by doing so we're gonna halt this critical investment in nature. I worry that we won't get the rules and standards right, so these investments won't have impact and won't result in real, additional, long lasting emission reductions and removals. And I worry that all of the controversy will make companies averse to climate ambition. --- _This conversation took place after a roundtable convened by TIME CO2, in partnership with American Forest Foundation, Climate Impact Partners, Pachama, Space Intelligence and Sylvera._ ## Transcript Tell me jokes after the carbon Market, because that's the mechanism for companies like Amazon at 2, to deal with those residual missions. What we found, frankly is a market that is not up to standards in terms of quality. It's also very small, really small for all the talk about it that the growth potential for it is still very, very small but we have to do here. It's figure out how to drive real impact as scale carbon credits, that's a that's a tool for measuring the impact that you have, right? So first things first, you got to go dry that impacted go crate, that changed the world and then we have to do a good job measuring that impact. The fact that there's been some criticism doesn't actually take away from the fact that it's probably one of the only scalable to respect. The problem is that Operations at doing this so that they don't have to reduce their emissions. We thought that might be the case, you didn't know but people have been saying this but maybe two decades. They provided you take two groups, corporations that will happen and corporations the album. Let's look at the right that I did have a nice time and it turns out that the people that stopped for carbon credits decarbonize on average twice as fast as the ones that didn't So the positive as we've we actually launched the project last year in December with a two and a half thousand stairs with my group restoration, with the local Community Partnership to leave that as a realtor proofpoint, that you can actually get community to let it run its own it and then actually I rolled in that is funding and making sure that it through bust and then it ties into removal strategy could buy. And then I gave up taking one a lot longer to get off and running the we anticipated. It's taking a lot longer to go through Frankfurt, in tunnel, legal and Commercial considerations. So making sure that this does the robustness of bribery and Corruption. Have we gone through the right corporate legal channels and actually a load of the city of the criteria that we put on a working with a normal supplier, you count put on working with Community projects that is it a lot of learning. There's been a lot of slightly slower than anticipated. There's been a lot of fight with some foods on. Well, this is acceptable, this isn't acceptable. How do we break the barriers of those and Good news. Is that getting up and running but was still going through Manchester Pate Franklin, still going through a limiting, probably for the next 10 plus years. The basis of always be science. However, making it practical and and working with our clients, it's also very location-specific. So we should not wait for signs to be translated, maybe two to very detailed level before starting acting on it. So we really tried just to go out there. Have these conversations form coalitions with a value chain and see if based on science, we can already start acting and make things practically right there where it needs to happen. I think the science behind, could you sing goodnight to myself? Sets is already there, we've known exactly what we need to do. We know how to protect deforestation to action on the ground and you know how to make a restoration, but we do A Space in Time, reviews that the debutante like that everyday baby. Goodnight. So we can find them on the ground rules in the standards that are based. In place to develop these credit projects, they need to take advantage of the best available science and there in situations in which methodologies have been proposed and Sciences evidence is looked at. And they're like, it's not ready, you know, there's too much uncertainty. We can't verify that, you know, these activities on the ground are actually creating the kind of benefit that they purport to. So, there's a process for her wedding, the the degree of Readiness for science to enter into the font and carbon Market. What we knew to be scientific fact, 50 years ago is not necessarily the same. Now, when you create a methodology to do a carbon offset project, State-of-the-art science is included, but it's not the only science. It's also the business case you have to be able to make a business case, someone has to buy that credit to make it viable. It have to be at a certain scale in order to make it worthwhile. Southern the science might learn something new so that methodology will need to be updated. But you know any project that you do, you can start it now and say, you know, I'm going to do this and it's going to take me this much to fund it and then, suddenly two years later, that's not accurate anymore. You need a certain run away and that's why projects tend to have a timeline for being able to cry. And then at the end of that timeline, you can update them at the Dollar Tree against the new science. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6317130/can-we-fix-carbon-offsets/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6317130/can-we-fix-carbon-offsets/"},"headline":"Can We Fix Carbon Offsets?","datePublished":"2023-09-25T12:32:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:50:54.194Z","description":"Nature-based carbon offsets have taken a great deal of criticism. 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