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A Corporate Buyer's Guide to Purchasing Carbon Credits
Insights on how to maximize impact and budget from experts at Climate Impact Partners
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As demand for high-quality carbon credits accelerates, corporate buyers are under pressure to act decisively and credibly. This guide outlines the strategies, purchase methods, and portfolio structures that enable our clients to deliver real impact through the voluntary carbon market.
Read on for practical guidance on sourcing carbon credits as part of a long-term climate strategy.
How to Buy Smart:
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Purchase Methods: Know Your Options
03
Selecting a Long-Term Partner
04
Make the Business Case Internally
05
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LiDAR monitoring at the RIZOME Kawayan Project, The Philippines
Define Your Climate Ambition and Role for Carbon Credits
Portfolio Strategy: Choose What’s Right for You
Speak with us about your procurement strategy
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Define Your Climate Ambition and Role for Carbon Credits
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Find out how Schroders leverages high-integrity carbon credits on their path to net zero.
Read Case Study
Watch video
Blackfeet Indian Nation Forest , Montana, USA
We believe that, while reducing our operational emissions in absolute terms and transitioning to net zero, there is a role for purchasing high-integrity carbon credits. The voluntary carbon market directs finance to climate action projects, Often providing additional benefits such as biodiversity protection, pollution prevention, public health improvements, and job creation.
Madeleine Cobb
Global Head of Corporate Sustainability
Schroders
Before buying, clarify how carbon credits fit into your broader net-zero or climate action roadmap.
Once you’ve set reduction targets, carbon credits can be used to help address global emissions as you work toward meeting those goals.
Companies use carbon credits to:
Mitigate residual emissions that cannot yet be eliminated
Support climate action beyond your value chain
Demonstrate proactive climate leadership
Deliver immediate impact
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Portfolio Strategy: Choose What’s Right for You
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Project-specific portfolio
Select and commit to purchasing carbon credits from a defined set of individual projects. This approach typically includes:
A mix of project types, including nature-based solutions, health and livelihoods, sustainable infrastructure, and CDR technologies
Geographic diversity to mitigate delivery risk
Tangible impact on local communities, including job creation, health improvements, education, and energy access
Co-benefits such as biodiversity protection, water security, and climate resilience
This approach suits organizations that want deeper engagement, measurable impact and alignment with broader sustainability and ESG goals.
You have the flexibility to design your portfolio in a way that reflects your priorities and appetite for risk:
Single Project: Build a direct connection to one initiative and see your impact in a focused, tangible way.
Project-Specific Portfolio: Diversify by selecting a curated mix of projects across types and regions to spread delivery risk.
Criteria-Based Portfolio: Define clear parameters - such as removals, high-integrity certifications, or CCP-approved projects - and build your portfolio around them.
Each approach provides a distinct pathway to align climate action with measurable impact, trusted integrity, and delivery confidence.
Shape Your Portfolio to Match Your Goals
Criteria-based portfolio
Design a portfolio of carbon credits that meet a pre-agreed set of criteria, such as:
Removal carbon credits
CCP-approved credits
Specific methodologies, vintages or co-benefits
This approach offers flexibility while maintaining alignment with your sustainability strategy and quality standards.
Single-project portfolio
In some cases, a client may only want to buy carbon credits from a single project rather than a portfolio of projects. Benefits include:
High sense of connection with the project to build a direct and meaningful relationship with a specific project and its impact story
Enhance storytelling potential to easily communicate the project’s outcomes to stakeholders, customers and employees
Minimal administrative due diligence to limit due diligence to one project, allowing companies to take a deeper dive into project activities
A long-term commitment to a single project provides integral funding stability to allow a project to grow while also providing simplified budget planning for corporates
Purchase Methods:
Know Your Options
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Project Development
Fund an entirely new project
Strengthens buyer influence and ensures access
Local women planting trees, Panna Afforestation, India
A family with their Ecofiltro water filter, Guatemala
Offer one-time transactions of issued credits
Provide quick access but offers limited ability to align with long-term strategies and budgets
Suitable for portfolio diversity or short-term claims such as CarbonNeutral® Certification and other certifications that must be renewed regularly
Pay-As-You-Go
Buy and pay today
Forward Purchases
Commit now, pay in the future
A tribal member measuring tree growth, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians IFM, USA
Mitigates supply and price volatility
Allows future budgeting
Ideal for alignment with long-term goals such as Net Zero and Science Based Targets that require multi-year strategic planning to execute
Multi-year Offtake Agreements are a type of forward purchase in the form of a multi-year contracts to buy carbon credits from a specific project or portfolio over time.
In 2024, there was a surge in long-term offtake agreements for nature-based removals, growing 380% over 2023.
Multi-year carbon offtakes are ideal for buyers seeking impact, cost efficiency, and long-term planning consistency.
This purchase method is increasingly favored by climate-leading companies due to its strategic benefits:
Alignment with Net-Zero Goals: Synchronize credit delivery with long-term emissions reduction timelines
Budget Planning: Provide certainty to your finance team with long-term budget planning
Project Stability: Provide projects with the financial certainty needed to support long-term climate solutions
Reputation and Brand: Failing to meet climate targets risks damaging stakeholder trust, while climate leadership offers a powerful brand opportunity.
Supply Security: Guarantee access to high-quality credits from preferred projects
Price Certainty: Lock in pricing ahead of market fluctuations
Corporates seek to secure supply today to meet their future demand for carbon credits.
Protect Your Budget with a Multi-year Offtake Agreement
Jake Reynolds, Head of Client Sustainability and Environment at Freshfields, a global law firm, shared a firsthand account of developing a forward-looking carbon credit procurement strategy.
Read Case Study
Through the Reforestation in East Africa Program (REAP) Freshfields made a 10-year commitment that allowed them to impact over 180 communities, while also locking in high-quality carbon credits at a reliable price.
Find out more about Freshfields’s long-term strategy:
Watch Webinar
Provides multi-year commitment to secure long-term partnership
Supports new project development and stable pricing
Client spotlight: Freshfields’ Long-Term Procurement Strategy
A 10 year commitment is quite significant. But actually a strong supporter of the program was our CFO, and there's lots of reasons why that is the case, but one of them was price certainty. We locked in a good value price because we were willing to make that long-term commitment over the following 10 years.
Jake Reynolds
Head of Client Sustainability and Environment
Freshfields
At Freshfields we’d been offsetting on a pay-as-you-go basis for about 10 years. We’d experienced fluctuating prices, inconsistency in our portfolio, and an annual due diligence and contracting burden; all of these were contributing factors that drove us to make a long term commitment.
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Selecting a
Long-Term Partner
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Ensure you have a trusted partner who can provide more than just quality carbon credits. The right long-term partner can provide support throughout your entire carbon credit journey, helping your company unlock greater value and impact, such as:
What to Ask When Choosing a Trusted Provider
When evaluating a provider, it’s important to ask the right questions to ensure credibility, transparency, and alignment with your sustainability goals. Here’s what you should ask:
Company and background and expertise:
Provide details on your company history, experience and expertise, including experience with clients our sector.
Provide details of your capacity, experience and expertise related to carbon offset projects, including standards, project types, and mitigation types you can offer.
Role and process in carbon supply chain:
What is your role in the carbon supply chain, and how does this help align with the buyer's needs?
What is your process to ensure you provide those credits from the market that best meet the buyer's various preferences?
Risk management and capacity:
What services do you provide to help address risks such as those associated with a delivery shortfall or failure from a project?
Can you provide long-term capacity for multi-year agreements?
Transparency and reporting:
Can you share the typical fee breakdown between the credit service provider and the project supplier/developer for your projects?
What project-level reporting do you provide in addition to the basic documentation required by the standards?
Client Support and alignment with strategy:
What arrangements do you have in place to support clients in the event of negative media attention?
Where applicable, do the offsetting projects align with the requirements of the business's Net Zero Strategy and targets?
With more than 27 years’ experience, Climate Impact Partners is equipped with the resources and expertise to help our clients maximize their carbon programs.
We work with a global portfolio of 600+ high-quality carbon projects across 60+ countries – tailored to meet your climate and sustainability goals.
Verification, standards and integrity:
What methodologies do you use to verify carbon savings and ensure project integrity? Please provide details.
Please describe your due diligence and risk management structure and processes. What proportion of the projects you handle pass your integrity criteria?
Climate Impact Partners team visiting the Panna Afforestation Project, India
Project development: opportunity to fund a custom or early-stage carbon projects tailored to your goals
Communications: translate your climate action into clear, compelling stories to your relevant internal and external stakeholders
Climate claims: navigate credible climate claims with transparency and compliance
Volunteers from Climate Impact Partners and Deloitte harvesting seedlings with Project Seagrass
We believe that, while reducing our operational emissions in absolute terms and transitioning to net zero, there is a role for purchasing high-integrity carbon credits. The voluntary carbon market directs finance to climate action projects, Often providing additional benefits such as biodiversity protection, pollution prevention, public health improvements, and job creation.
Read case study
Global project sourcing: access high-integrity carbon credits from around the world
Quality control: expert assessment of project quality, risk and impact
Download our checklist
Portfolio management: build and maintain a diversified carbon credit portfolio
Molly Kampmann
WorldClimate Head of Partnerships
Deloitte
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Making the Business Case Internally and to your CFO
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Engage Finance Early
Connect to Stakeholder Value
Use strategic investment language: "climate capital", "resilience investment"
Data and metrics matter so make them visible: Integrating sustainability into KPIs and decision-making frameworks helps make the business case
Highlight value protection, risk reduction, and cost of inaction
The path to securing CFO buy-in starts with reframing climate action not as a cost, but as a long-term investment in resilience, reputation, and growth.
Wind Turbines
Monitoring team visiting the Rizome Project in The Philippines
Retain employees and reduce turnover: 69% of the potential workforce say they are more likely to accept a job with an organization they consider to be environmentally sustainable (IBM research)
Carbon credits with co-benefits provide reputational and ESG returns
Link sustainability initiatives to brand, investor, and employee expectations
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CFOs love numbers. Moving toward a carbon budget, similar to a financial budget, gives everyone regular transparency so they understand their impact and progress vs a target.
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Pei Yun Teng
Global Director of Social Impact & Sustainability
Kearney
Speak With Us About Your Procurement Strategy
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The voluntary carbon market is evolving rapidly. Corporates that act now, invest strategically, and prioritize credibility will shape the future of high-impact climate action. With the right partners, purchase methods, and portfolio, carbon credits will continue to be a powerful tool for climate leadership.
Whether you're just starting your journey or looking to strengthen your current approach, Climate Impact Partners is your trusted partners, here to help. Our team brings deep expertise, trusted partnerships, and a commitment to climate integrity.
Book a call with our expert team