Purchase of climate certificates discontinued

1 October 2019 Peter Graf

In order to neutralise our remaining CO2 emissions, AMPEG has acquired climate certificates for ten years.

After intensive consultation, we decided against this program.

Some of our climate certificates came from forest protected areas under the REDD+ programme. These certificates achieve their value in particular from the avoided deforestation. The programme can therefore only "save" CO2 emissions if we assume a future in which the forest will be destroyed. In addition, international climate commercialisation of forests can lead to indigenous or other local communities losing their rights to use their traditional forests. But we do not want to acquire climate certificates at the expense of people in the global South.

Purchased climate neutrality is a concept, that is only good for the image, if measures to significantly reduce CO2 are not implemented at the same time. This is why we continue to work on reducing CO2 emissions in our everyday work.

Instead of acquiring climate certificates, for example, we donate share certificates for Moorland for the "Goldgrube" climate moor, in which moorland areas in Lower Saxony are wetted again.