Buy Carbon Credits and Take Climate Action with Net Zero Marketplace

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Describe why neutralizing residual emissions is required to address the climate crisis.
Define what carbon credits are.
Summarize how purchasing carbon credits helps companies make progress toward their net zero targets.
Explain how Net Zero Marketplace, powered by Salesforce, can help simplify the path to net zero for everyone.

Explore Solutions to the Climate Crisis

Decarbonizing to reduce greenhouse gasses (GHG) can feel like a daunting task! Organizations may face challenges dealing with residual emissions, despite having a robust climate strategy in place, implementing carbon reduction measures, and adopting other sustainable business practices. This could be because their business is growing or because the low-carbon products they need to decarbonize, such as low-carbon jet fuel, or steel, don’t yet exist at scale.

Reaching net zero globally requires companies to prioritize avoiding or reducing emissions as quickly as possible (by no later than 2050 to align with the global climate goals), and neutralizing any residual emissions. Is there a readily available solution to neutralize residual emissions? Let’s find out.

Net Zero: a balance of emitted and reduced or removed greenhouse gasses.

Yes, There’s a Way

Carbon credits come into play when an organization has employed all the strategies available to it to reduce emissions, yet some emissions remain. Buying carbon credits compensates for residual emissions.

Carbon credits are transferable instruments that represent reduction in CO₂ or other GHG emissions. They’re certified by governments or independent certification bodies. One carbon credit represents reduction, avoidance, or removal of one metric tonne of CO₂ (tCO₂e) or an equivalent amount of CO₂ and other GHG.

When you buy carbon credits from a reputable carbon marketplace, you finance a project run by an ecopreneur. Ecopreneurs are those environmentally minded entrepreneurs who lead and drive climate action worldwide.

It’s not as simple as it sounds, however. Carbon credits can be hard to verify. How do you know if trees you financed have really been planted in a forest 5,000 miles away? Who’ll guarantee that the same trees haven’t been sold to other buyers? And how do you know whether the trees you bought as part of your carbon credits are still alive?

Net Zero Marketplace, powered by Salesforce, offers a trusted platform to buy carbon credits, helping make the path to net zero easier, faster, and more transparent.

Make Progress with Net Zero Marketplace

Net Zero Marketplace and its offerings.

Net Zero Marketplace, powered by Salesforce, is:

A climate action hub for everyone
A trusted site for organizations to purchase carbon credits from ecopreneurs through a seamless ecommerce experience
A voluntary carbon marketplace

Net Zero Marketplace creates a carbon marketplace for organizations that are choosing to purchase carbon credits to support their carbon neutral and net zero commitments or corporate sustainability initiatives. This means any organization that chooses to buy carbon credits to support its corporate sustainability initiatives or make progress toward their net zero targets is welcome in the marketplace. It is not a compliance carbon marketplace where regulated entities like energy producers are required to buy or sell credits.

Here are some key features that make it trusted and unique.

Open to All

Net Zero Marketplace is open to everyone, transforming a complex market into an accessible marketplace, at scale. You don’t need to be a Net Zero Cloud customer, or even a Salesforce customer, to access and browse the marketplace. When you’re ready to create a portfolio of projects or to purchase carbon credits, simply sign up.

Trust and Transparency

Trust is our #1 value at Salesforce, and trust starts with transparency. Net Zero Marketplace is built with transparency at its core.

Customers can browse a diverse catalog of carbon credit projects from around the globe and use built-in tools (such as third-party ratings and Q&A with carbon credit providers) to help them select those that align with their organization’s priorities and standards.

By simplifying the process for buyers to vet and purchase carbon credits to compensate for emissions they cannot yet reduce, Salesforce aims to accelerate the global journey to net zero.

Portfolio Management

Many corporate buyers take time evaluating projects based on the project details and data. Some may even hire an independent consultant to review their potential projects. To facilitate this, Net Zero Marketplace offers the ability to build a portfolio of carbon credit projects to evaluate prepurchase.

Buyers can select projects from the curated lists and add them to their portfolio, view information for the projects added to their portfolio, and move to cart the projects they want to purchase.

We are all in this together, working toward a common goal of net zero emissions globally, and each of us has an important role to play. At Salesforce, our commitment toward this shared global goal is a company-wide priority. We’ve made sustainability our fifth core value, while also supporting the trillion tree initiative, a platform for ecopreneurs. Now we’re investing US$100 million to help remove carbon from the atmosphere at scale. See the Resources section below to learn more about these exciting initiatives.

Summing It Up

Carbon credits are one tool in the climate action tool box, that when used responsibly can help companies take climate action. Salesforce offers Net Zero Marketplace, where companies can buy carbon credits and make progress toward net zero targets.