When you offset your carbon emissions with Gold Standard, you’re not only helping to protect the planet from the effects of climate change; you’re helping to improve the lives of people in vulnerable communities by supporting sustainable development. Gold Standard projects lead to benefits such as the creation of jobs, protection of endangered species, access to safe water, and improved health and livelihoods.
Through our Offset Your Emissions page, Gold Standard sells verified emission reductions (carbon credits) on behalf of the project developers running these projects. To ensure that projects remain viable a minimum price is applied for each different project type. This minimum price is calculated based on the Fairtrade carbon credit pricing model and adjusted - using data from the Vivid Economics study ‘Valuating the benefits from improved cooking solutions’ and ‘The real value of robust climate action’ report published by Netbalance - by 2 cents for every $ of shared value created to take into account the added benefits delivered beyond simply reducing carbon. Project developers choose at what price to sell their credits starting from the foundation of this minimum price. The prices can be located in the project profiles.
80% of the proceeds go to the project developers to help maintain and expand their climate protection projects. The remaining 20% is used to cover variable PayPal service charges and the administrative costs in maintaining the platform and transparently retiring the credits.
To help those wanting to offset with a variety of projects, you can now choose to offset with a Climate+ Portfolio. The portfolio includes Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). Prices are set by calculating the average price across the project types available in the portfolio. Proceeds from CERs go directly to Gold Standard to support our Initiatives and Innovations and the ongoing improvement of Gold Standard for the Global Goals. More information on this approach is included in the project page.
