The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Barriers to achieving additionality in carbon offsets: a regulatory risk perspective
Abstract
The Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER) in Alberta, Canada was the first North American regulation to mandate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Regulated entities may use carbon offsets to meet their emissions reduction obligations. Although conceptually sound, the offset market has fallen short of its potential to reduce emissions. By analyzing the policies and operations of the Alberta Emissions Offset System (AEOS), enabled by the SGER, we illustrate how participants are impacted by uncertainty in the Alberta carbon offset development process, using ECB Lethbridge Biogas as a case study. Our analysis shows that existing uncertainty from regulation creates risk for projects, which builds barriers that prevent regulated entities, project developers, and the province of Alberta from reaching the full potential of the regulation. We provide recommendations that will help to achieve additionality within the offset system by encouraging increased participation from high-quality projects, ultimately resulting in greater emission reductions.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
It is difficult to prove additionality for carbon offsets, or that the carbon-reducing activity would not have happened regardless of investment or purchase of the offset.
“the difficulty of proving additionality , or that the carbon-reducing activity would not have happened regardless of investment or purchase of the offset [17, 46]”
From From Efficiency Gains to Rebound Effects: The Problem of Jevons' Paradox in AI's Polarized Environmental Debate (2025) · cites this paper as [17]
Citations
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 44
- 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2012-10 · DOI
- Alberta Biogas Company Hopes to Turn Manure into Money with Government Help. 2013. The Canadian Press. http://www.thecanadianpress.com
- Alberta Environment and Parks, 2008, Alberta's Climate Change Strategy, Responsibility, Leadership, Action
- Alberta Government, 2014, Alberta's Climate Change Regulations Extended
- Bloomberg, 2015, Biogas Facilities in Canada [Data File]
- 10.1016/j.enpol.2007.05.030 · DOI
- 10.1080/09640568.2013.787055 · DOI
- 10.3200/ENVT.51.3.08-18 · DOI
- CSA Group, 2014, Alberta Emissions Offset Registry
- Coglianese C., 2015, Listening Learning Leading: A Framework for Regulatory Excellence. Alberta Energy Regulator and Penn Program on Regulation
- Conference Board of Canada, 2014, Environment. Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- 10.1142/9789814546898_0005 · DOI
- Daly H. E., 1996, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development
- Environment Canada, 2014, Canada's Emissions Trends 2014
- Environment Canada, 2015, Government of Canada Announces 2030 Emissions Target [News Release]
- Foley C., 2011, Carbon Offset Handbook
- Gillenwater M., 2012, Discussion Paper No. 001 Version 03
- Goodward J., 2010, Bottom Line on Offsets
- Government of Alberta, 2013, Technical Guidance for Offset Project Developers. Version 4.0 Specified Gas Emitters Regulation
- 10.1016/S0301-4215(02)00142-8 · DOI
- 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.09.021 · DOI
- 10.1146/annurev.energy.32.053006.141203 · DOI
- 10.1016/j.envsci.2008.07.001 · DOI
- 10.1080/09640568.2010.506084 · DOI
- Kollmuss A., 2008, Making Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market: A Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards
- Lethbridge Biogas LP, 2015, Home
- 10.1080/13563460903290946 · DOI
- 10.1016/j.jeem.2013.02.003 · DOI
- 10.1596/978-0-8213-7100-8 · DOI
- 10.5465/amr.1987.4306502 · DOI
- 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.03.001 · DOI
- Nesseth D., 2014, Forging a Path for Biogas in Alberta: How It Took 10 Years and $30 Million to Get Canada's Largest Commercial Biogas Facility Up and Running…with Almost No Regulatory Framework
- Nordhaus W., 2007, The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy
- Office of the Auditor General Alberta, 2011, Report of the Auditor General of Alberta
- Portney P. R., 2003, Resources, 151, 15
- 10.1111/1467-9930.00037 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.3763/cpol.2008.0533 · DOI
- Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, Alberta Regulation. 139/2007. (Canada)
- Stern N., 2006, Stern Review on the Economic Effects of Climate Change. Executive Summary
- 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2008-25 · DOI
- United Nations, 1998, Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- Walter, M., and M. A. Luebke. 2013. The Impact of Corruption on Climate Change: Threatening Emissions Trading Mechanisms? UNEP Global Environmental Alert System. UNEP/GRID-Sioux Falls. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2259312
- Wara M. W., 2008, Working Paper #74
- 10.1080/09640568.2013.811402 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Luccioni, A. S., Strubell, E., & Crawford, K. (2025) · Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency · doi:10.1145/3715275.3732007 · Cited by 71
“…difficulty of proving addi-tionality , or that the carbon-reducing activity would not have happened regardless of investment or purchase of the offset [17, 46], and (2) that offsetting rarely mitigates localizedimpacts tothe communities where emissions or other environmental degradation is occurring.”
Metadata
- Authors
- Campbell, J., Herremans, I. M., & Kleffner, A.
- Affiliations
- Blue Source Canada, Calgary, Canada
- University of Calgary (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Herremans, Irene M.
- Venue
- Journal of Environmental Planning and Management
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-04-04
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 14
- Pages
- 2570-2589
- ISSN
- 0964-0568 (ISSN-L)
- 1360-0559
- OpenAlex
- W2795401294
- Cited by
- 16
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 1.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Environmental Planning and Management (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- CMA Alberta (RT755823)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental Conservation and Management
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Regulation and Compliance Studies
- Keywords
- carbon offsetting, additionality, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, regulatory risk, biogas projects
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
