Frequently Asked Questions
If you’re looking to offset, or simply learn more about ACES and our work, we have answered our frequently asked questions below! But, if you don’t find what you are looking for, simply contact us!
Our projects are certified to the Plan Vivo Standard, who prioritise poverty alleviation. In order to achieve this certification, the projects are validated by an independent assessor before they are launched and undergo 5-yearly independent verification assessments.
We don’t sell credits on our website because we prefer to know who is buying them and ensure that they are not used to facilitate greenwashing. You can get in touch with us to discuss buying our credits, and if you are happy to share, we would love to know a bit about you and your carbon reduction journey.
They are both. Our reforestation activities remove carbon from the atmosphere as the new trees grow and trap sediment carbon in their roots. Our avoided deforestation both reduces carbon emissions from burning of timber and escape of sediment carbon and removes carbon as the trees are allowed to grow beyond what they would have otherwise done without the protection.
We believe that systemic change is the priority in the fight against climate change. However, the global community is not moving fast enough to tackle the problem – we are still on a trajectory to exceed 2 degrees of warming. Fully reducing or eliminating our GHG emissions is not always possible – many of us need to fly to visit family, cannot afford electric cars or to decarbonise our homes, public transport is not always adequate to travel by. This is where we believe carbon offsetting can play part in the meantime – to compensate for those unavoidable emissions while we reach a low-carbon world.
We try to make our credits as affordable as possible to the type of clients who we like to work with – genuine, ethical buyers who may be charities, small businesses, or individuals. Our credits are not the cheapest on the market – they couldn’t be as high-quality if they were – but neither do we seek to sell to the highest bidder. Get in touch with us to discuss a quote for your needs.
ACES works closely with the community groups that lead our projects. We are a charity and do not make a profit from sales. We retain a small percentage (around 15%) to cover our overheads and pay certification and audit costs for the projects. Of the ~85% sent to the community groups, around half is spent on salaries, a third on community development activities and the remainder funds forest conservation and restoration activities.
We work in partnership with Community Based Organisations (CBOs), which are governed by boards of locally elected community members. The CBOs report to and consult with the wider community on project development and how the community development funds should be spent. Around 1/3 of our project expenditure is allocated to community development activities and the wider community can vote on how this is spent, ensuring that they benefit the community as a whole and address local needs.
Our credits equate to a certified tonne of CO2 that our projects have either sequestered or prevented from being released into the atmosphere.
Donations support our work as a charity, allowing us to provide technical and advisory support to non-accredited projects and to send as much of the carbon income as possible to community groups. We also occasionally seek donations for community development activities beyond the usual remit of our projects, for example, funding period poverty relief.
