CARBON neutral claims have come under fresh controversy after a senate inquiry into Greenwashing heard an Australian Government certification program, Climate Active, had not been given the stamp approval from the regulator.

A senate committee is currently investigating the environmental claims being made by companies and the impact they are having – with a report due in June.

This week, carbon neutral claims came under fire with The Australian reporting that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission told the inquiry it had paused its approval of Climate Active after several attempts trying to clarify its rules.

Many beef industry stakeholders have been making claims under Climate Active standard, including Coles, NAPCo and Kilcoy Global Foods.

Greens MP and leader of the senate inquiry Sarah Hanson-Young said the Government system not being approved by the ACCC was “outrageous”.

“It’s extraordinary to hear that the ACCC, the Government’s own regulator in charge of registering and certifying trademarks, has not certified the Government’s own Climate Active trademark.” Ms Hanson-Young said.

“We’ve got corporations right across the country relying on this Government stamp of approval to tell their customers that they have green products or that they are carbon neutral.

“The Government’s own stamp of approval hasn’t even been properly certified.”

Difficulty across the world

The Climate Active criticism is another demonstration of the difficulties regulators across the world are having in governing climate claims and targets – particularly regulating the role carbon credits have to play.

Last week, a UN-backed organisation called the Science Based Targets initiative, a standard for climate targets, announced it was reviewing the role of offsets had to play. SBTi has been trying come up with the right rules to ensure companies were doing all they can to reduce their own emissions first.

The integrity of carbon offsets has also been under the microscope, with scientists and media outlets making repeated criticism of Australian and international carbon markets – which also put Government regulators into a spin.

Earlier this month, AgCarbon Central profiled NAPCo’s Climate Active certified beef brand. The company has purchased carbon credits to make itself carbon neutral and has been trying to run a series of carbon projects to become “net zero” on its own.

Chief executive officer Allan Cooney said the company and many others in the northern pastoral industry were becoming frustrated at the constantly changing rules.

“We are stuck in this limbo where the regulator is not keeping up with the industry,” Mr Cooney said.

“That is not just us, we are part of the northern pastoral industry and collectively we have a couple of million head under our management. Everyone in that group is busting at the seams to get these projects going and it is quite frustrating.”

• Beef Central will be looking into this subject further in the coming months with a report due at the end of June