What is carbon offset gas and does it help the environment?
Three quarters of UK homes use gas for their central heating.
Getting off gas is crucial to combatting climate change, but that change is not happening overnight. Which is why in the meantime, providing gas that is as green as it can be is important to us and to our customers. In this article, we explain where our greener gas comes from, and how we offset its carbon through Gold Standard schemes.
Where does our gas come from?
10% of the gas that we sell is renewable biogas. It’s generated here in the UK from organic matter that has been processed in an anaerobic digester to produce bio-methane. We have strict procurement policies for our green gas to ensure it is low carbon, sustainable and ethical.
For the other 90% of gas we supply, we balance the carbon emissions by investing in Gold Standard carbon offsetting projects that boost access to clean energy worldwide.
Does carbon offsetting actually help the environment?
Carbon offsetting can be a contentious subject. It comes in many different forms, it isn’t the same as not emitting the carbon in the first place, or as extracting carbon from the air once it has been omitted — as some technologies promise to be able to do.
However, we believe that high quality carbon offsetting schemes can play an important role in helping the planet – as long as they are used alongside other significant actions to directly reduce carbon emissions.
What’s more, they can have social benefits. This can include making renewable energy more affordable and accessible across the world – not just in affluent countries.
This brings positive impacts beyond just protecting the environment, including providing decent work and economic growth, improved health, gender equality and access to food to name a few.
How does Good Energy offset its gas emissions?
Good Energy balances the emissions from the gas our customers use in their homes and businesses by investing in Gold Standard accredited schemes with B Corp, SkootEco. Developed by the WWF, the Gold Standard requires projects to benefit the local population as well as cutting carbon, and it is generally regarded as stricter than many other carbon offsetting standards.
Here’s a little more information about the projects we support that are bringing positive environmental, social and health impacts to local communities:
Punjab household biogas
In the Indian state of Punjab, this project replaces inefficient wood fired mud stoves with clean and sustainable biogas cookstoves. Households use their cow’s dung to feed a digester, which produces biogas for use in cooking. By replacing wood, the community is cutting down fewer trees and preventing harmful greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere.
HomeBiogas Kenya
This project provides clean cooking technologies including biogas stoves to rural homes across Kenya. Like in Punjab, it means less wood is being used for cooking and heating, which as well as reducing carbon emissions and deforestation, is having hugely positive impacts on people’s health.
What’s more, it provides a rich, free fertiliser that has dramatically improved the yield of the farms these communities rely on.
“I love that I can now have my son in the kitchen without worrying that he will inhale smoke. I am also saving money that I would have been spending on wood and fertiliser.”
Esther Gathumbi, Tinga’nga Kiambu
“The HomeBiogas system has helped me to increase my income, by increasing yields in my coffee farm. With chemical fertilisers, I was getting 100kg of yield from 50 coffee trees. Now I am getting 210kg from the same trees.”
Nelson Mwirigi, Kangaru Embu.
Biogas China
This project uses manure from farms in Jiangxi province to generate renewable electricity – while treating wastewater and creating fertiliser as a biproduct. With the support of investors like us, 10 new closed anaerobic directors are being installed to prevent methane emissions from being released into the atmosphere, and boost energy production further.
This project improves access to clean, affordable energy, boosts jobs and economic growth and promotes climate action.
The future of heating
While so many homes across the UK still rely on gas heating, we believe it is important to provide gas in a way that is better for people and the planet.
But ultimately, our ambition is to help homes and businesses to move away from gas entirely. This is why in 2022 we started installing air source heat pumps, and we have been working hard to publish high quality, data-driven information about their benefits ever since.
