How your organization can use carbon removals: Principles for aligning to net zero

We’re at a tipping point in how we handle climate change. We can no longer rely on reducing emissions to reach global net zero goals. We need to actively remove carbon.  

This means thinking — and acting — differently. New technologies that remove carbon from the atmosphere permanently play a key part. But how should they be incorporated into a high-quality carbon credit portfolio?  

This article is an excerpt from A way forward: Building a high-integrity and diverse carbon credit portfolio. Click here to download the guide in full, for free.

A best practice approach to carbon offsetting 

The Oxford Offsetting Principles provide a recognized framework for building a diverse portfolio that incorporates carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits, and other credits and tactics, to help guide the delivery of net zero commitment. The principles promote high-integrity strategies to properly guide offsetting efforts and ensure there’s real climate benefit. When done properly, that means goodbye to greenwashing 

Balancing a selection of different carbon credits within a diverse portfolio ensures long-term sustainability, helps mitigate various risks, and signals a commitment to holistic and scientifically grounded climate action. Purchasing widely also creates a broad set of co-benefits — from positively affecting nature and communities to supporting innovation and the development of new markets as technology progresses. 

Using the Oxford Offsetting Principles 

Revised in 2024, the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting¹ were created to help organizations understand the evolving carbon markets and offsetting practices to achieve net zero commitments. Rather than suggesting what to invest in specifically, these principles explore how to weight a portfolio over time. 

Emphasizing the need to scale up carbon removal 

The revised principles focus on a shift from avoidance, reductions and “short-term storage” of carbon to “long-term storage,” such as permanently storing CO₂ in geological reservoirs or mineralizing carbon into stable forms. Hard-to-abate sectors including aviation, steelmaking and manufacturing may struggle to completely avoid fossil carbon, making a decarbonization pathway that includes carbon removals a necessity.² This also takes into account that reducing emissions can only take us so far — the amount of historic carbon already in the atmosphere is at dangerous levels.  

A diverse portfolio that encourages the growth of emerging technologies — such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) — supports the increase of carbon removal with the lowest risk of reversal (i.e. releasing greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere) to help move us toward our net zero ambitions.  

An overview of the four principles  

Principle one: Cut emissions, ensure the environmental integrity of credits used to achieve net zero and regularly revise your offsetting strategy as best practice evolves. 

This principle highlights the continued urgency to reduce emissions from within your own supply and value chains. Though not enough on their own, these measures will still form the core component of a credible net zero strategy. Like all decisions your organization makes, integrity is key when selecting carbon credits for a portfolio. This means confirming they’re accurately measured, reported, verified and accounted for — paying close attention to the risk of double counting — and that the emission reduction or carbon removal did in fact happen. Alongside integrity is the need for transparency. Tracking your credits closely will enable you to disclose current emissions, accounting and verification practices, and show transition plans and progress against targets. 

Principle two: Transition to carbon removal offsetting for any residual emissions by the global net zero target date. 

Credits associated with reducing or avoiding emissions play a short-term role in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy. However, to achieve net zero emissions, you need credits that remove carbon from the atmosphere to counterbalance residual and historic emissions. It is important to design your portfolio to reflect the 2050 timescale and to gradually transition to 100% of purchases being on carbon removal projects. It is also important to look for high-quality carbon removal, for example a methodology that applies the principles of conservativeness, in order to ensure the integrity of your carbon credit portfolio.  

Principle three: Shift to removals with durable storage (low risk of reversal) to compensate for residual emissions by the net zero target date. 

Though all carbon removals need to be stored, not all methods are equal — with some having a higher risk of reversal and shorter permanence than others. These include afforestation and ecosystem restoration, though they do deliver biodiversity and adaptation co-benefits. Credits with moderate risk of reversal, such as certain nature-based removals, are valuable in the short and middle term, but credits with low risk of reversal and high, long-term durability, like BECCS and direct air capture and storage (DACS), are needed to achieve and maintain a net zero balance — and even potentially achieve net negative emissions. 

Check out our infographic on comparing credit types here. 

Principle four: Support the development of innovative and integrated approaches to achieving net zero. 

The current market for durable, high-quality CDRs will need to expand significantly if we’re to achieve net zero by 2050. There are a variety of credible options available for carbon storage, but these need to scale further with incentives that encourage take up to increase availability and grow the market. Investing in CDR technologies early will create demand, which in turn will drive supply to accelerate its development. The Oxford Offsetting Principles include the following ways to be an early adopter to support this critical CDR market. 

Snapshot of a high-quality strategy in action 

In 2020, Microsoft announced its commitment to go beyond carbon neutrality and to be carbon negative by 2030 — acknowledging that “while the world will need to reach net zero, those of us who can afford to move faster and go further should do so.” And Microsoft plans to go beyond even carbon negativity, pledging to remove all the carbon it has emitted since 1975 either directly or through electricity consumption by 2050. 

To cut carbon emissions by more than half by 2030, Microsoft designed a program that would aggressively cut direct emissions as well as those from across the entire supply and value chain. The below diagram demonstrates the shift Microsoft has planned to achieve carbon negativity by 2030 — transitioning from avoided emissions offsets to leveraging carbon removal in order to work toward its goals more effectively. (3)