Carbon offsetting is a term that gets used often in the yachting industry, yet the distinction between the different types of projects is rarely explained with any real clarity. That matters, because the difference is significant. Not all carbon credits do the same thing, and understanding what they actually achieve is the foundation of any credible approach to managing your vessel’s environmental impact.
At the heart of it, carbon offset projects fall into two broad categories: avoidance and removal. Both play a role in addressing climate change, but they operate differently, deliver different outcomes, and carry different implications for how we think about sustainability.
Avoidance Projects: Preventing Emissions Before They Happen
Avoidance projects work by stopping emissions from occurring in the first place. Rather than extracting carbon from the atmosphere, they prevent additional carbon from entering it.
The most common examples include renewable energy projects such as wind farms, solar installations, and hydroelectric schemes that displace electricity generation from fossil fuels. Where a coal-fired power station would have emitted significant quantities of CO₂, a solar plant produces equivalent electricity with no direct emissions. The carbon that would have been released is, in effect, avoided. Forest protection projects follow the same logic: standing trees store carbon, and protecting them from deforestation prevents that stored carbon from being released.
The impact of avoidance projects is typically immediate. Switching to renewable energy or implementing more efficient technologies produces a measurable reduction in emissions from the point of implementation. This makes them a powerful tool for slowing the rate at which carbon accumulates in the atmosphere, and it goes some way to explaining why avoidance credits currently account for around 80% of carbon credit retirements globally. However, avoidance projects have a clear limitation: they prevent new emissions from being released into the atmosphere, but do not address existing CO₂ that are already driving climate impacts.
Removal Projects: Actively Drawing Carbon Down
Removal projects take a fundamentally different approach. Rather than preventing new emissions, they actively extract carbon already present in the atmosphere and lock it away for the long term.
The coastal marine projects we work with at Yacht Carbon Offset involve mangrove and seagrass restoration, and they are a compelling illustration of what removal looks like in practice. Mangroves are amongst the most carbon-dense ecosystems on Earth. When their leaves, branches and root matter decompose in the waterlogged, oxygen-poor sediments beneath them, the process slows almost to a halt. Carbon is buried in those sediments and stored not for years, but for centuries and sometimes millennia. This is what scientists refer to as “blue carbon”: carbon sequestered in coastal and marine ecosystems.
The scale of this capacity is striking. According to NOAA and the UN Environment Programme, mangroves and coastal wetlands sequester carbon at approximately ten times the rate of mature tropical forests, and they are some of the most carbon-rich ecosystems on the planet, storing on average 1,000 tonnes of carbon per hectare in their biomass and underlying soils. Furthermore, because these ecosystems exist at the water’s edge, the permanence of that storage is markedly more reliable than land-based forestry projects, which carry a persistent risk of release through wildfire, disease, or land-use change.
Removal projects also deliver benefits that extend well beyond carbon. Restored mangrove forests protect coastlines from storm surge and sea level rise, support fish nurseries, and sustain the marine biodiversity on which coastal communities and recreational fishers alike depend. For a yachting community that operates along some of the world’s most ecologically sensitive coastlines, the value of that goes far beyond the credits themselves.
Where The Yachting Industry Sits
The yachting industry is embracing the decarbonisation agenda with growing momentum. New frameworks are raising the bar across the board: the IMO’s Carbon Intensity Indicator has set a target of 40% reduction in emissions intensity by 2030 relative to 2008. Additionally, the superyacht industry is adopting new tools such as the Superyacht Eco Association’s SEA Index Certification or ETYC’s Digital Platform to aid emissions monitoring and reduction.
Alternative fuels such as green methanol, hydrogen, and HVO are gaining real traction. As Lloyd’s Register’s Global Yacht Segment Manager Engel de Boer put it: “The challenge is not whether the yachting industry will decarbonise, it’s how quickly it can. Unlike past transitions driven by technological innovation or commercial advantage, today’s energy shift is propelled by environmental urgency, regulatory mandates and rising social expectations.”
While the energy transition gathers pace, high-quality carbon offsetting plays a valuable role today, acting as a responsible bridge to a lower-carbon future.
Complementary, Not Competing
Carbon offsetting works best as a complement to reduction rather than a substitute for it. The most credible approach prioritises cutting emissions at source, then uses carefully selected, verified offset projects to address what remains.
Avoidance credits deliver immediate, cost-effective impact, while removal credits provide permanent CO₂ sequestration and become increasingly important as organisations progress towards net zero. Together, they form a coherent and meaningful strategy.
Project selection is everything. High-quality credits share four key attributes: accurate reporting, additionality, permanence, and co-benefits such as biodiversity protection. Understanding what you are buying, and why, is what separates genuine commitment from a box-ticking exercise. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and the standard we encourage the whole yachting community to adopt.