If you’re considering the environmental impact of hosting an event, you might focus on logistics like energy efficiency, the food you serve, or the event materials distributed to attendees. While focusing on these types of areas can help soften the event’s environmental footprint and greenhouse gas emissions, it’s hard to build a truly sustainable event based on operational choices alone.
The problem is that events, especially large ones like conferences or major sporting events, tend to involve decisions outside your control, like how attendees travel to your event and how they consume resources at the event venue. These factors can create a significant negative impact, even when sustainability measures are in place.
Carbon emissions from people flying in to attend, one of the largest contributors to event related greenhouse gasses, can easily overshadow the emissions you avoid by reusing name badge lanyards from previous events, for example. And you might put out compost bins next to landfill and recycling containers, but at a busy, crowded event, an attendee might haphazardly throw whatever trash they have on hand into whatever bin they first see.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t try to focus on logistics, as sustainability isn’t all or nothing. Every step helps. And you may be able to make meaningful progress toward sustainability goals, based on choices like venue location, reducing reliance on traditional power plants, and improving energy savings through more efficient or renewable energy sources, such as swapping diesel generators for solar ones.
But if you really want to make your event net zero or at least get closer to minimizing environmental impacts, buying high quality carbon credits and other environmental credits, like renewable energy certificates, is often critical.
Doing so isn’t a shortcut to event sustainability. Instead, carbon credits can help you account for the areas outside your control, like travel emissions, as well as taking responsibility for the emissions impact of all the little details that you cannot reduce or avoid. Many carbon credit projects work to store carbon or support initiatives where emissions are actively reduced or carbon removed from the atmosphere, often at a large scale.
To ensure credibility, it’s important that carbon credits follow strict verification standards aligned with global frameworks like those supported by the United Nations. This helps prevent issues like double counting, where the same emissions reduction is claimed more than once.
Terrapass makes it easy to buy carbon credits for both individuals and businesses. You can buy credits that align with emissions from specific events like weddings, those that help address the impact of flying, or other personal or corporate packages based on your emissions goals.
Case Study: The Olympics
How Carbon Credits Help Address Residual Emissions from Large Events
The Olympics haven’t always had the best environmental reputation, such as with the legacy of host cities spinning up massive new sporting facilities that soon become abandoned. Recent Olympic Games, however, have made environmental sustainability and social responsibility more of a focal point.
For example, the Paris 2024 Games included significant sustainability efforts, such as with 95 percent of the venues being temporary or from preexisting infrastructure. Event organizers also added grid connections so that nearly all energy consumption came from renewable sources, reducing dependence on fossil fuel-based power plants and increasing overall energy savings, instead of relying as much on sources like diesel generators.
Yet despite reducing emissions by more than half compared to the preceding Rio and London summer Olympics, the Paris Games still had a carbon footprint of 1.59 million tCO2e, which was more than Netflix’s total Scope 1 to 3 emissions that year, for comparison. Nearly half of those emissions came from spectators traveling to the Games, indicating how hard it is to cut your way to zero while still maintaining the power of live events.
So, Paris 2024 spent €12.1 million on carbon sequestration and avoidance credits that matched the 1.59 million tCO2e residual emissions total. This included financing projects such as cooking systems in several African countries, solar projects in Senegal and Vietnam, deforestation protection in Guatemala and Kenya, and mangrove restoration in Senegal. These types of initiatives help store carbon and contribute to carbon removed from the atmosphere on a large scale. The Organising Committee also financed some forestry projects within France to more directly compensate for emissions within its control.
Another type of credit usage showed up recently during the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics. Their commitment to using virtually all clean electricity during the Games was made possible in part by Italian electricity company Enel procuring Guarantees of Origin, essentially a European version of renewable energy certificates, that correspond with renewable energy, as PBS reported.
And for the upcoming LA 2028 Olympics, the host has established an internal carbon price as a way to incentivize efficiencies while also generating funds for the LA28 Resilience Champions Fund. This will finance local improvements rather than international carbon offsets. For example, the fund will focus on areas including cooling solutions like native tree planting, wildfire resilience such as by planting fire resilient native plants, and ocean protection such as through beach cleanups.
Going forward, carbon credits could become even more important to Olympic events, considering that in 2020, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) set a requirement that, starting in 2030, all host cities would need to go even further by making the Games climate positive. Granted, that has arguably since been softened, such as with Brisbane 2032’s contract being adjusted to make being climate positive more of a goal than a necessity.
Still, carbon credits and similar financing mechanisms will likely continue to provide ways for host cities to address unavoidable emissions, such as those associated with flying, while reducing their overall negative impact. In addition to addressing emissions, carbon credits also typically provide co benefits that support health and other positive outcomes in local communities.
Terrapass offers carbon credits across a broad range of project types, such as reforestation and landfill gas capture. You can support a mix of projects and their associated benefits with a monthly subscription of carbon credits for just $8.50 per employee that offsets what many businesses emit during normal operations, or you could build a carbon credit portfolio that aligns more with specific events if you’re hosting.
Using Carbon Offsets for Your Own Events
While you’re probably not hosting an Olympic sized event, similar strategies can be scaled to all sorts of other sustainable event planning, ranging from conferences to parties.
To fully balance emissions, an event organizer would ideally calculate total emissions. Depending on the scale of your event, this might require working with a third-party sustainability consultant that can assist with carbon accounting, or you might be able to use online carbon footprint calculators.
Even if you can’t map out all of your emissions, you might calculate some of the largest sources, like flight emissions. A virtual event might avoid a big chunk of these travel emissions, but that might run counter to your goals of facilitating in person bonding that’s hard to replicate online. So, if you’re hosting a company retreat in another city, for example, you could add up the flight miles among your employees and calculate the associated emissions.
While this doesn’t account for everything, such as on-site emissions like hotel energy usage and food, it can give you a good starting point. By at least purchasing flight carbon offsets, organizers can take responsibility for what is typically one of the largest emissions components of any large event, particularly those tied to greenhouse gasses. Meanwhile, you can make operational choices for your corporate event, like choosing a sustainable venue, reducing reliance on fossil fuel-based power plants, and improving energy savings through efficient practices.
You also may be able to buy carbon credits that align with the approximate emissions from specific types of events. For example, Terrapass sells carbon offsets for weddings, which you can scale according to how many guests you have and whether you also want to account for honeymoon emissions and the impact on water systems.
Whether you’re hosting a personal event or a large corporate one, Terrapass offers a mix of ready to buy carbon offset packages, or our team of sustainability experts can help you develop a custom carbon offset plan as you aim to balance your carbon footprint. By supporting verified projects that operate at a large scale, you can address emissions responsibly while contributing to meaningful climate solutions.
Talk to a Sustainability Expert Today
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Nature-based carbon investments deserve consideration when they address a specific business dependency and produce outcomes you can measure. Imagine Moonbucks, a global coffee roaster planning next season’s espresso blend. It is considering natural Grade 4 coffee from Jimma, in southwestern Oromia, Ethiopia. Its sourcing decisions affect the roasting schedule and the cash tied up in coffee purchases. Moonbucks needs to understand which measures could protect that supply, what they would cost and how it would judge the results.
1. Define the sourcing problem before choosing a project
Moonbucks needs a dependable component for its espresso blend. Its procurement team wants continuity of volume and an agreed cup profile. Replacing a shipment at short notice could require new sample approval and changes to the blend, and given the schedules for cultivation, processing, and freight delivery, is practically impossible. Moonbucks needs to get this right, and its initial concern is inconsistent deliveries. It commissions an assessment of the supplying farms and post-harvest chain. The questions cover land condition, harvest availability and whether drying or storage problems are affecting saleable lots.
This distinction changes the investment brief. A tree-planting proposal cannot be assumed to fix drying problems. Better storage cannot restore eroded land. The team must establish which problem exists before selecting the response.
CCC’s guide to finding nature-based solutions in your supply chain explains where to look. Here, the next task is to turn a broad concern into a testable proposal.
2. Develop nature-based carbon investments around the actual supply chain
The assessment would trace Moonbucks’ purchases back through the exporter and supplying producer groups. Which farms supply the contracted lots? Who controls land-management decisions? How long does the buyer expect to maintain the purchasing relationship?
Furthermore, Jimma natural Grade 4 cannot be treated as interchangeable with every Ethiopian coffee. Moonbucks would need to test any substitute against its own blend and quality requirements.
Suppose Moonbucks’ assessment identifies an opportunity to maintain shade trees and restore vegetation along exposed streambanks. The IPCC describes agroforestry as a way to store carbon in vegetation and soil, with potential benefits for erosion control and water quality.1 Moonbucks would need local advice on species, growing conditions and maintenance before deciding how these measures fit its sourcing plan.
The proposal now has a defined sourcing connection and a candidate intervention. The next steps are to test its effect on production, assess carbon eligibility and build the financial case.
3. Compare the proposal with other ways to protect supply
WBCSD’s Nature-based Solutions Blueprint recommends comparing nature-based options with other responses across their benefits and costs.2 For Moonbucks, that means evaluating the landscape proposal alongside drying improvements, storage controls and alternative sourcing arrangements.
The product’s natural-process designation matters. Moonbucks should examine the drying and dry-milling chain alongside land conditions. Its team would check storage practices, contamination risks and incoming-lot quality to see whether problems arise before or after the coffee leaves the farms.
The revised proposal might combine land stewardship with separate post-harvest controls. Each component needs its own purpose and budget. A sustainability label should not obscure which activity is expected to solve which problem.
The project develops as the evidence improves. Its scope should follow the diagnosis rather than preserve the first idea unchanged.
4. Establish what the carbon outcome could count toward
Moonbucks’ sustainability team now tests the proposed carbon case separately from the sourcing case. Is the objective a measurable change in Moonbucks’ value-chain emissions, verified credits for separate voluntary use, or distinct outcomes under carefully defined arrangements?
Scope 3 covers value-chain emissions. A purchasing relationship alone does not prove that a farm intervention can be included in Moonbucks’ inventory. The team needs an applicable accounting method, defensible boundaries and evidence supporting attribution.
SBTi’s FLAG Guidance (forest, land and agriculture), version 1.2, says purchased credits used as offsets cannot meet near-term FLAG or energy and industry targets. Eligible land-based removals are subject to accounting requirements.3 Moonbucks needs to test its proposal against those rules before including an outcome in its targets.
For Moonbucks’ Jimma proposal, maintaining existing trees and establishing new vegetation could involve different carbon questions. Specialists must examine the baseline and additionality, meaning what changes because the project proceeds. They must also assess measurement and the risk that stored carbon is lost. CCC’s MRV and additionality article introduces those tests.
Until that work is complete, Moonbucks should not budget an assumed Scope 3 reduction or credit-sale receipt. Direct emissions reductions remain the priority.
5. Build a financial case that survives weaker assumptions
Moonbucks’ finance team would now build a multi-year budget. UNEP’s State of Finance for Nature 2023 compares current finance with the investment needed to meet climate, biodiversity and land-restoration goals.4 The company would cost its proposed activities, farmer participation and ongoing monitoring. Verification, where required, is a separate expense. Maintenance and responsibility for replacing failed plantings must remain visible after the initial establishment budget ends.
Operational benefits need equally careful treatment. If fewer rejected lots reduce emergency purchasing, count that saving once. Do not add “supply resilience” as another financial benefit when it represents the same avoided cost.
Moonbucks should compare a base case with slower benefits, higher implementation costs and no carbon revenue. It should also distinguish production outcomes from quality and shipment outcomes. A single good harvest would not prove that the landscape intervention caused better delivery performance.
A project can remain worth funding even when its carbon case needs more work. That decision must rest on the operational evidence and the company’s objectives, without unsupported environmental claims.
6. Fund a pilot with a clear expansion decision
Moonbucks’ first approval would fund a bounded pilot, rather than commit the entire sourcing program. Before spending, Moonbucks would agree on participating farms, responsibilities and the evidence needed at review.
Its scorecard could track farmer participation, implementation costs and plant survival, alongside accepted coffee volumes and lot-quality results. Carbon measurements would follow the selected method. Farm-level traceability must connect the intervention to the actual sourcing relationship.
Suppose Moonbucks’ review later finds that storage changes explain most quality improvements, while the land measures need longer observation. Those findings would shape the next decision: expand the proven component, adjust the landscape work or pause further spending. They would not justify crediting all improvements to tree planting.
This gives nature-based carbon investments a practical place in a multi-year strategy. Funding increases as the evidence supports it, and the project can change direction before a larger commitment.
Discuss a sourcing opportunity with CCC
Carbon Credit Capital’s nature-based supply-chain investment service uses its Dual-Value Model to examine supply-chain economics alongside potential sustainability outcomes.
Schedule a consultation to discuss your sourcing exposure and the questions to resolve before allocating capital.
Sources
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, Chapter 7, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses, section 7.4.3.3 (Agroforestry).
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Nature-based Solutions Blueprint, 5 June 2024.
- Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), Forest, Land and Agriculture Science-Based Target-Setting Guidance, version 1.2, March 2026, section 3.1.4, pp. 37–38.
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), State of Finance for Nature 2023, 2023.
A plastic credit funds the collection of plastic waste in places where no formal system exists to collect it. Each credit represents a measured, independently audited quantity of plastic taken out of the environment or returned to use, tracked on a public registry.
EU carbon credit claims changed on 27 September 2026, the day the Directive (EU) 2024/825 began to apply across the European Union. The change is narrow. It changes how a company can talk about the credits it buys. A product can no longer be called neutral on the strength of compensation alone; however, every specific, evidenced statement about what a company measured, reduced, and funded stays fully available.
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