Carbon offsetting is a way for people, businesses or organisations to balance out the carbon footprint they create by supporting projects that reduce or remove greenhouse gases. These projects—like planting trees, creating access to clean water and clean cookstoves earn carbon credits (offsets) by reducing or avoiding carbon emissions.

These credits represent a measurable amount of carbon reduced or avoided. By buying Vita Impact credits, individuals and organisations can take responsibility for their emissions while supporting women and their families to build resilience to climate shocks in East Africa. These credits also help restore fragile eco systems like forests. You can read more on how carbon sales transform communities in East Africa HERE

There are two types of carbon credits:

Avoidance-These come from projects that prevent new emissions from happening such as our clean stoves and clean, safe, clean water programmes.

Removal – These come from projects that remove carbon that’s already in the air such as reforestation programmes.

Vita Impact generates carbon credits through clean, safe water, clean cookstoves and forestry programmes in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Based in Ireland, Vita provides high-integrity carbon credits to businesses across Europe and globally with the following distinct attributes:

• Circularity

Our model is circular model, a global first in carbon offsets. Residual profits from credit sales are reinvested into the communities that generate them. This reinvestment may be in the form of more cookstoves, water points and forestry or in other areas of need such as agriculture.

• No commercial leakage

Unlike most other carbon offsets, Vita Impact has funded these project itself through investment. This means that the offsets can be held in trust by Vita until point of sale as there is no ‘chain’ of ownership of the offsets.  The advantage of this is that there is almost no commercial leakage. It also means we can protect our offsets from being used for greenwashing.

• Creates decent jobs for women

The programme works directly with local women-led cookstove co-operatives to make the cookstoves. The profits from the sales of the offsets are used to subsidise the cost of the stoves, making them far more affordable for women and their families.  We also partner with local seedling co-operatives to grow quality seedlings that are planted in community-managed woodlots. By choosing to offset with us, you are not only contributing to a healthier planet but are also creating local job opportunities and economic growth in rural Ethiopia and Eritrea.

•  Reduce the gender gap

Those who benefit the most from cleaner cooking and safe water are women and girls. That’s because they are the ones who are tasked with fetching the water and gathering the sticks used to boil it as well as in cooking. Reducing their dependency on these sticks liberates their time back to them, time that can be used for income generation, education or resting.