Australia’s largest carbon market player, GreenCollar, has quit the federal government’s voluntary carbon neutral program, Climate Active. More than 100 companies have left the program in the past two years.

Climate Active provides certification to businesses and other organisations to verify that they are carbon neutral. Certification is supposed to mean an organisation has neutralised the impacts its greenhouse gas emissions have on global warming by buying carbon offsets, which represent emission reductions achieved elsewhere.

GreenCollar is among many Australian organisations that develop emissions-reduction projects, such as storing carbon in vegetation. Upon exiting the Climate Active scheme, GreenCollar co-founder James Schultz told The Australian that Climate Active had become too risky, due to criticism from environmentalists the carbon abatement associated with offsets is often not genuine.

Electricity retailer EnergyAustralia has also acknowledged “legitimate public concern” about carbon offsets and programs such as Climate Active that rely........

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