Compensation

Explanation of the compensation model

Zifera helps you minimise the climate impact of your website. We do this through a three-step process:

• Zifera helps you make your website as energy efficient as possible.

• Zifera monitors the data traffic from and to your website and compensates the CO2 emissions of this energy use.

We work together with the Fair Climate Fund. Fair Climate Fund’s mission is a fair climate: a world in which those who contribute the most to climate change invest in climate projects that benefit people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Our partner works according to Fairtrade principles and pay people in developing countries a fair and ethically good price for the carbon credits they generate with climate projects. The CO2 emissions of your website are compensated by their sustainable household energy projects such as clean cookstoves and biogas. In addition, we pay Fair Climate for a nature-based solution: a reforestation project in Peru. FairClimateFund has a unique position in the market as a provider of Gold Standard and Fairtrade certified carbon credits.¹

Our current way of living and working has an enormous impact. That’s why it’s important that we minimise our emissions of greenhouse gases, that we accelerate the energy transition and that we store CO2 in forests and other ecosystems: this last part can be 37 % of the solution of the climate problem. ²

When we compensate

• we critically examine whether the compensation is properly calculated; ³

• we only use the term CO2-neutral when the project partners can truly live up to it; ⁴

• we try to help our customers understand that compensation is the last step in a process, and we try to help them minimise their energy use. ⁵

We only have one earth, and there is not nearly enough space on the earth to compensate all our CO2 emissions by planting trees, for instance. Besides the climate and biodiversity, land usage is one of the nine planetary limitations we are racing beyond. There is not one single solution we should choose, but we should implement all these solutions instead: the restoration of nature AND the reduction of fossil energy, among others. We would like to join forces with you to make this happen!⁵⁶⁷⁸

Sources

1. https://www.fairclimatefund.nl/content/3-projecten/6-peru-herbebossing-voor-koffieboeren/factsheet-peru-nl.pdf
2. https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/natures-make-or-break-potential-for-climate-change/
3. https://www.vlieghinder.nl/nieuws/artikel/eye-opener-co2-compensatie-werkt-niet
4. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/08/27/reclame-code-commissie-tikt-shell-op-de-vingers-om-claim-co2-neutraal-a4056284
5. https://www.zeit.de/zustimmung?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fmobilitaet%2F2020-02%2Fverkehrswende-klimaschutz-emissionen-fliegen-bahnfahren-verkehrsmittel-matthias-sutter
6. https://dekleineaarde.nl/nieuws/planeet-aarde-is-een-hoofdletter-waard
7. https://www.slideshare.net/GlenPeters_CICERO/what-does-netzero-emissions-mean
8. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html