More and more companies are pledging to cut carbon emissions . Many say they ' ll buy carbon offsets that save forests , but counting how much carbon is actually saved is fuzzy math .
MARY LOUISE KELLY , HOST :
One-fifth of the world ' s biggest companies have made some sort of pledge to go carbon neutral , meaning they will pollute less or pay to offset their pollution . One popular type of offset involves saving trees . But as Julia Simon reports for our Planet Money podcast , some critics are finding the tree math doesn ' t add up .
JULIA SIMON , BYLINE : With so many companies now looking to buy offsets , there is a booming industry of startups looking to sell them , including one called Pachama , which sells offsets from forests .
DIEGO SAEZ GIL : So in a way , we are a marketplace like Airbnb , connecting supply and demand .
SIMON : This is co-founder Diego Saez Gil . On Pachama ' s website , companies can go to a map and pick a forest to save in Columbia , Peru or this map we ' re zooming into in Brazil .
Oh , there it goes . SAEZ GIL : It zooms . SIMON : Zooming into Brazil . SAEZ GIL : Yeah . SIMON : Oh , in the center of Brazil . Woo ( ph ). SAEZ GIL : Yeah . SIMON : Big , big zoom . SAEZ GIL : Yeah , yeah . And you can see the shape of a triangle . SIMON : It ' s a triangle . SAEZ GIL : Yes . That is the borders of the area that is being conserved . Otherwise it will be deforested .
SIMON : That otherwise it will be deforested is key here because there is a theory behind offsets that save trees . Trees - kind of incredible . They store carbon , suck it out of the air . Some trees get cut down every year for things like ranching or for lumber , so the company pays to stop trees from getting cut down .
Mount Auburn Cemetery | Climate Action & Sustainability Plan 92