Quality Assurance Scheme - QAS Carbon Offsetting

What is the "Quality Assurance Scheme"?

The Quality Assurance Scheme (QAS) started off as part of a wider government-led strategy to persuade individuals and organisations to reduce their carbon emissions, and understand the role carbon offsetting plays.

The government scheme closed on 30 June 2011, at which time the leading offset providers, who were part of the government's original scheme pledged to continue providing high quality offsets to the same standard.

Carbon Footprint Ltd was one of just four carbon offsetting organisations that met the original government scheme and is one of the founding members of the new QAS Carbon Offsetting Scheme.

The Quality Assurance Scheme, continues to give confidence to businesses and individuals that the calculation methodology being used has been independently verified and the offset project meets the highest standards available in the offsetting industry. In addition the scheme includes an audit process to verify offset providers are following this standard and fullfilling the full offsetting obligations for their customers.

How do I buy Approved QAS Carbon Offsets?

At the moment only Kyoto compliant Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits carry this mark. However, there are discussions about the possibility of including the highest quality Voluntary Emission Reduction (VER) projects in the near future.

Which online calculations are approved?

All our calculators are approved, our domestic*, business* and flight only calculator.

* for UK residents (home and business electricity factors) only.

Note the quality mark will not be shown if:

• the secondary footprint is included, due to the uncertainty in this estimation.
• building energy (e.g. gas and electricity) is entered in monetary values, due to the large range of energy tariffs and therefore the likely error margin with this calculation method.
• the calculation has not be been performed on this website, as the government standard requires a calculation to be made using the approved methodology and emission factors.

Are all our offset projects approved?

The Quality Assurance Scheme currently only gives backing to Kyoto approved projects such as Certified Emission Reductions (CERs).

However, we offer a range of voluntary offsets, that may be more applicable to your requirements, in terms of the added social, economical and wider environmental benefits in addition to the carbon reductions. These projects are typically small scale, where the registration costs for full CER registration would be inhibitive.

The same calculation method is used for all offset projects, whether you select the Quality Approved offset, or one of the voluntary offset projects.