Together we have now reached 2 million euros in climate action

In the past two years, we have channelled 2 031 310 euros in compensation payments to carbon capture.

This money has come from individuals who offset their lives using our mobile app, companies who have taken action with our self-service tool, Compensate Plus, and from our corporate partners that have gone carbon negative through us.

For a relatively small climate operator, two million is a significant amount of money. It has allowed us to buy 440 273 carbon credits to remove 136 027 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere – nearly the same amount that all of Finland emits in one day.

“For us this is a significant milestone. It means that more people and companies are willing to take responsibility, even if the past year and half has been difficult for many. It is great to see that they have chosen us to look after their carbon offsetting, and it has also been very rewarding for our team to see that what we do matters,” says our CEO Elina Kajosaari.

We have taken many ambitious steps in the past six months to get to where we are now, which is to make climate action as easy as possible.

We launched Compensate Plus, a service for small businesses and freelancers to become carbon negative. We have been creating our Carbon Store , a platform that provides easy access to offsetting with real-time access to carbon footprint calculations and our dynamic carbon capture portfolio.

Our mobile app went from a Finnish beta version to one that covers the whole of Europe, providing individuals a hassle-free way to understand, calculate and offset their daily emissions. We have also launched our white paper , our most in-depth report on the voluntary carbon market and our project evaluation criteria so far.

Our actions have gained us great new partners and important international media coverage. Just recently our Chief Impact Officer, Niklas Kaskeala, was interviewed by Quartz about the flaws of the voluntary carbon market.

“People are starting to wake up to the fact that we need to take drastic and immediate action, but if the market is flawed, it can do more harm than good to the climate. That’s why we exist. We want to challenge the existing standards and acknowledge the flaws, so that we can fix them together”, Kajosaari says.

All we need is cooperation

The levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are alarming, and the pandemic has done very little to slow climate change. Without carbon capture, we will not be able to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The voluntary carbon market is also growing exponentially. It means that now is the time to define the principles and rules to ensure long-term sustainability of the market. In spring 2020, we created our own project criteria to raise the bar on sustainability, and to look for the most efficient carbon projects in the market.

Last year, we concentrated fully on traditional carbon projects, such as forest conservation and land use. This year, the portfolio has evolved to 80% traditional projects and 20% innovative methods such as soil carbon (carbon stored in soils), blue carbon (carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems), and biochar, a charcoal-like substance made by burning organic material from agricultural and forestry waste.

"These modern methods are not yet the most cost-effective, but we feel that it is our responsibility to support the development of the market by investing in them. The more ways to capture carbon there are, the more we can remove from the atmosphere," Kajosaari says.

It is clear that not everything can, or should, be measured in euros. Our role as a nonprofit organization provides an opportunity to provoke conversation, be critical, and raise awareness on climate action, and the climate crisis in general. It is crucial that people and companies learn to ask the right questions in order to make impactful decisions.

“We have noticed that our voice matters, and we want to share what we have learnt to others. We as humanity have access to the technology we need, the money and the resources, everything we need in order to make the change soon enough – all we need is cooperation. That's why we all must take responsibility,” Kajosaari concludes.

What does 2 031 310 euros mean? The impact is the same as...

Celebrate this milestone with us by sharing your climate action with #WeCompensate – if we got to 1 million in 17 months, 2 million in 6 months, how quickly can we get to 3 million?

Compensate is here to enable easy access to the highest quality carbon capture – for businesses and for individuals. Our carbon footprint calculator helps everyone to make a difference. Ways to take action:

Download the Compensate app to calculate and compensate your climate impact:

Compensate on the App Store

Compensate in Google Play

Take action as a business:

Carbon Store - calculate your business emissions and start offsetting

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