Renat Heuberger gathered his co-founders on a glacier in the Swiss Alps for a celebration. The half-dozen men behind South Pole, the world's leading seller of carbon offsets, raised their beers around a crackling fire: business was booming and the firm's valuation was hurtling toward $1 billion, making it one of the first carbon unicorns. The claims underpinning the South Pole's success have been losing ground like the ice underfoot that day two summers ago. South Pole claimed that the annihilation of a forest nearly the size of Puerto Rico has prevented the destruction of a forest in Zimbabwe called Kariba. That is South Pole's business model: help finance projects that can counteract rising levels of greenhouse gas, such as stopping deforestation, and then sell the resulting credit to corporate clients who want to compensate for their own planet-warming pollution.
The firm and its partner ended up overestimating the extent of the preservation by Kariba, according to several outside experts and South Pole's own analysis. Gucci, Nestle, McKinsey and other South Pole clients haven't generated real atmospheric benefit because of the Kariba credits they bought. South Pole says credits are legitimate and will still benefit the climate. It could be related to a conflict with your ad blocking or security software. The list of allowed sites includes jp and piano.io. If this does not resolve the issue or you are unable to add the domains to your allowlist, please see this FAQ. We apologize for the inconvenience.