Policies and criteria for net zero
Principles for making a net zero commitment
Net Zero: how to get it right
Drawing upon research-informed insights, Oxford Net Zero has contributed to the latest thinking on net zero. These include the seven attributes for getting net zero right, ensuring that standards which govern net zero align with the scientific consensus, and how to offset aligned with net-zero. Click on the buttons to find out more about each set of research-based principles, or scroll down to browse all three.
HOW TO COMMIT TO NET ZERO:
HOW TO GET NET ZERO RIGHT – THE 7 ATTRIBUTES
The concept of net-zero carbon emissions has emerged from physical climate science. However, it is operationalised through social, political and economic systems. We identify seven attributes of net zero, which are important to make it a successful framework for climate action, using our flagship paper in Nature Climate Change.
The seven attributes highlight the urgency of emission reductions, which need to be front-loaded, and of coverage of all emission sources, including currently difficult ones. The attributes emphasise the need for social and environmental integrity. This means carbon dioxide removals should be used cautiously and the use of carbon offsets should be regulated effectively. Net zero must be aligned with broader sustainable development objectives, which implies an equitable net-zero transition, socio-ecological sustainability and the pursuit of broad economic opportunities.
The 7 attributes
Front-loaded emission reductions
A comprehensive approach to emission reductions
Cautious use of carbon dioxide removal and storage
Effective regulation of carbon offsets
An equitable transition to net zero
Alignment with broader socio-ecological objectives
Pursuit of new economic opportunities
HOW TO COMMIT TO NET ZERO:
NET ZERO FOR NON-STATE ACTORS
To get to net zero by 2050, we need actors of all kinds: countries, companies, financial institutions, educational institutions and many more to collectively commit to align their individual organisations with an ambitious climate plan, or ‘net zero strategy’. There are many standards, voluntary initiatives and guidance documents that guide non-state actors around best practice guidance on net zero. This includes, for example:
- How to measure and report emissions (the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), the most widely used global standard for this)
- How to set a net zero target (the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) the largest validator of corporate climate targets, covering 1/3rd of the global economy by market capitalisation)
- How to use carbon credits (the Oxford Offsetting Principles, one of the most widely used guidance documents in the world for how to use credits)
These rules govern and inform the ways that non-state actors approach the big task of reaching global net zero by 2050. At Oxford Net Zero, we track the content of standards to understand what is being considered good net zero practice. You can find our summary report here.
how to commit to net zero:
PRINCIPLES for Net ZERO-AliGNED OFFSETTING
Carbon offsetting is a widespread tool in efforts to achieve net zero emissions. It involves payment to receive credit for a certified unit of emission reduction or removal carried out by another actor. Current approaches to offsetting are unlikely to deliver the volume and type of mitigation needed to achieve global climate goals. Many net zero pledges from companies and countries rely on offsetting to meet their commitments, yet concerningly hardly any offsetting strategies today are net zero aligned by failing to account for the needed balance between an actor’s residual emissions and removals.
What type of strategies are aligned with pathways to net zero? The Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting (revised 2024) provide guidelines to help ensure offsetting strategies take us closer to rather than further away from a net zero society. Explore the Principles below.
Looking for tools to help you follow these steps?
1 — Cut emissions, use high quality offsets, and regularly revise offsetting strategy as best practice evolves
A host of carbon offsetting best practices have been developed over the past decades. Adherents to these principles must first observe these best practices, which can be grouped as:
Prioritise reducing your own emissions. Minimise the need for offsets in the first place.
Ensure environmental integrity. Use offsets that are verifiable and correctly accounted for and have a low risk of non-additionality, reversal, and creating negative unintended consequences for people and the environment.
Maintain transparency. Disclose current emissions, accounting practices, targets to reach net zero, and the type of offsets you employ.
2 — Shift offsetting towards carbon removal
Most offsets available today are emission reductions, which are necessary but not sufficient to achieve net zero in the long run. Carbon removals scrub carbon directly from the atmosphere.
Users of offsets should increase the portion of their offsets that come from carbon removals, rather than from emission reductions, ultimately reaching 100% carbon removals by midcentury to ensure compatibility with the Paris Agreement goals. Creating demand for carbon removal offsets today will send the necessary market signal to increase supply.
3 — Shift offsetting towards long-lived storage
The transition from emission reductions to carbon removals as outlined in Principle 2 above is critical for achieving net zero, but doesn’t address the question of how carbon is stored. Short-lived storage involves methods that have a higher risk of being reversed over decades. Long-lived storage refers to methods of storing carbon that have a low risk of reversal over centuries to millennia, such as storing CO2 in geological reservoirs or mineralising carbon into stable forms.
Short-lived storage offsets help buy time to reduce emissions and invest in long-lived storage, but they are not a long-term solution for achieving balance between sinks and sources. It is therefore critical that investment in scaling and improving the technologies that enable long-lived storage begins now. Creating demand for long-lived offsets today sends a signal to the market to grow the supply of such offsets.
4 — Support the development of net zero aligned offsetting
The market for the high-quality offsets needed to meet Principles 2 and 3 is immature and in need of early-adopters to support its evolution. Users of these principles can develop the market for net zero aligned offsetting by:
Using long-term agreements. Give the certainty required by offset project developers to create net zero offsets.
Forming sector-specific alliances. Work collaboratively with peers to develop the market for net zero aligned offsets.
Supporting the restoration and protection of a wide range of natural and semi-natural ecosystems in their own right. Not only will this secure the ecosystem goods and services on which humans depend, including resilience to the impacts of climate change, but will contribute to carbon storage over the long term. While carbon offsetting can help to fund some of this work, such efforts should fundamentally be supported for the benefits and values they create, not purely for the purpose of carbon offsetting.
Adopting and publicising these Principles, and incorporating them into regulation and standard-setting for approaches to offsetting and net zero.
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