At talks on cutting plastics pollution, plastics credits are on the table. What are they?
Two groups that want reduced plastics production published a report Friday highly critical of plastics credits, calling them a flawed tool that won't help with worldwide pollution from the material.
The groups — Break Free From Plastic and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives — said the credits often amount to corporate greenwashing. They issued their report in Nairobi on the sidelines of United Nations-led negotiations for a treaty aimed at cutting plastics pollution.
They analyzed publicly available databases of two prominent proponents of plastic offsetting, the accreditor Verra and the Plastic Credit Exchange marketplace. Their report cited “serious flaws” in financing, transparency and basic auditing, and said credits being issued for plastic incinerated in cement kilns were substituting one form of pollution for another.
Verra, the world's leading certifier of carbon offsets, said
