Too Good to be True:
Warning to consumers about low-integrity carbon trading platform co-opting home solar, EVs for corporate offsetting

Climate Integrity is warning potential users of new carbon trading platforms to be wary of claims that households could receive payments for having solar, driving an EV or keeping trees - with analysis showing the carbon credits issued through such schemes lack integrity. 

A new carbon credit platform, Aetium, tells consumers they could “Get paid $ for reducing CO2”, potentially misleading users about the climate benefits of the credits it issues, which are unlikely to represent real emissions reductions.

Our analysis also exposes a deeper integrity gap in Australia’s carbon market governance and industry “Code of Conduct”.

Junk carbon offset scheme too good to be true for EV and solar owners

We have referred our concerns to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Ad Standards, asking them to investigate whether claims made by Aetium that consumers can receive carbon credits and potential payments for existing rooftop solar, electric vehicle use and owning trees are misleading or deceptive.

The complaint raises three serious concerns:

  1. The claimed emissions reductions lack additionality, and therefore do not represent real emissions reductions.

  2. The use of ‘avoidance’ offsets does not represent the physical removal of carbon from the atmosphere, and are unlikely to have a real impact on the climate.

  3. The use of short-duration “permanence” periods, methodological inconsistencies and lack of reference to recognised standards all further undermine credit integrity.

Climate Integrity has raised these concerns directly with representatives of Aetium.

In addition to the ACCC, we have brought these concerns to the attention of the administrators of the Australian Carbon Industry Code of Conduct, the Carbon Market Institute, and the Clean Energy Regulator.

ComplaintS to the ACCC and Ad standars

Potential misleading claims by Aetium

Letter to ACCC
Letter to Ad Standards

Key Integrity Failings

  • Aetium issues credits retrospectively for activities that are already occurring and overwhelmingly represent business-as-usual behaviour, including:

    • Electricity generated from established Solar PV systems, including those installed years prior to Aetium’s existence;

    • The use of existing electric vehicles, purchased independently of Aetium’s platform, and

    • Existing trees on private land with no demonstrated risk of clearing.

    The definition of additionality adopted by Aetium – “additionality means the CO₂ reduction would not have occurred if the solar system, EV or forestry did not exist” – is not aligned with any recognised carbon offset standard, as it lacks a requirement for activities to be additional to business-as-usual activities and additional to any regulatory requirements. 

    It is also out of step with the additionality requirements adopted under the Emissions Reduction Fund for the issuance of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).

    Climate Integrity met with Aetium on multiple occasions to raise these concerns, but Aetium defended its use of the flawed approach to additionality. 

    This inversion of the concept by Aetium effectively removes additionality as a safeguard entirely and the result is a crediting model that creates no new abatement, while producing units marketed as genuine emissions reductions.

  • Concerns relating to the integrity of carbon credits are broad and reflect some of the systemic challenges to demonstrating that additional, effective and permanent emissions reductions can be achieved beyond the direct reduction of emissions and the phase out of fossil fuel use. For example, Aetium plans to issue carbon credits for claimed ‘avoided’ emissions, which do not represent emissions actually removed from the atmosphere.

    Aetium promotes its carbon credits as supporting genuine climate action, when in reality they could enable a company - like a major fossil fuel producer - to use the credits as offsets instead of achieving genuine reductions in their emissions. 

    The credits issued by Aetium in fact allow purchasers to avoid further action and continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which will have a significant impact on the climate. For this reason, many experts argue that the use of carbon offsets is inconsistent with the action needed to ensure a safe climate. 

  • Aetium defines “permanent” as a “12-month guarantee”, even for forestry where future deforestation removes the sequestration of today. No recognised carbon crediting system classifies 12-month durability as permanence.

    • Leading analysis shows even 1,000 years of storage can still result in warming over the long term.

    Aetium’s approach to defining additionality and permanency timelines are out of step with established carbon crediting standards, and it does not apply any recognised carbon crediting methodology from:

    • The Emissions Reduction Fund,

    • Verra

    • Gold Standard, or

    • ICVCM CCP requirements.

    Instead, Aetium claims to use its own “PAVER” checklist –  even though its practices do not comply with PAVER’s definitions, particularly in relation to Permanence, Additionality, Verifiability and Real emissions reductions.

    This creates material risk that consumers, and potentially businesses, will assume equivalence between TCUs and regulated or high-integrity voluntary credits when no such equivalence exists.

“An additionality test is a critical integrity safeguard in all major carbon credit standards, it assesses whether a project genuinely creates ‘additional’ emissions reductions, beyond ‘business as usual’ and which would not have occurred in the absence of the incentive.

Aetium’s credits fail to meet an additionality test because consumers signing up to the scheme would have bought and used their EVs or solar panels whether Aetium existed or not.”

Executive Director, Climate Integrity

Claire Snyder

When industry “best practice” codes don’t look under the hood

How membership of recognised industry bodies risks enabling greenwashing

Aetium prominently advertises its membership of high-profile industry bodies, including the Smart Energy Council, the Electric Vehicle Council and its status as a signatory of the Australian Carbon Industry Code of Conduct – providing the company with a veneer of credibility and trustworthiness. 

The Carbon Market Institute (CMI) established the Australian Carbon Industry Code of Conduct and promotes it as a marker of “integrity, transparency and accountability” in Australia’s carbon industry. 

The CMI tells consumers to “look for the Code brandmark whenever you procure carbon services”, positioning the brandmark as an indicator that signatories meet high standards of quality and trust.

Climate Integrity wrote to the CMI asking whether integrity issues with Aetium’s model breached its Code of Conduct.

The CMI’s response was revealing:
The administrator overseeing the Code advised that the Code does not regulate or assess the technical quality of carbon credits, and that our concerns were outside the scope of the Code and better handled by a government regulator.

The problem? There is no regulator for voluntary carbon schemes

CMI publicly promotes its Code as an assurance of industry integrity but it simultaneously confirms that it plays no role in assessing the quality or credibility of carbon credits being issued by its signatories. Meanwhile, no government agency regulates voluntary carbon crediting schemes.

This leaves consumers participating in voluntary platforms relying only on the broad, nonspecific protections of the Australian Consumer Law and enforcement by the resource-stretched ACCC – a weak safety net for products marketed as “offsets” or “environmental services.”

Why this matters for credibility

When industry bodies promote a “signatory” brandmark as a signal of trust and integrity – while disclaiming responsibility for the actual integrity of credits – it risks creating a false sense of assurance. This gap can:

  • Enable greenwashing, by allowing low-integrity schemes to appear endorsed or vetted.

  • Mislead consumers, who reasonably assume that an integrity code covers the quality of what is being sold.

If the purpose of an industry code is to build trust, then allowing signatories to market questionable carbon products under its banner – without any scrutiny of those products – undermines the very integrity it claims to uphold.

The High-Risk Promise of Carbon Credits

The gaps in oversight highlighted here point to a broader reality: carbon credits of all kinds are a limited, short-term and high-risk tool. Even when designed well, offsets can only ever play a narrow role in addressing residual emissions after genuine cuts have been exhausted. In practice, many schemes fall far short of that standard.

A recent paper in Nature, authored by several leading Australian carbon credit experts, warned that offsets – especially those with low environmental integrity – “undermine decarbonization by enabling companies and countries to claim that emissions have been reduced when they have not. This results in more emissions, delays the phase-out of fossil fuels and diverts scarce resources to false solutions.”

Companies and consumers should treat offset claims with caution. Real progress comes from real emissions cuts – not from credits that promise more than they deliver.