19 Jan 2026
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”.
Aetium Investigation Update - August 2026
We referred Aetium to the ACCC, Ad Standards and ASIC, after our investigation concluded that claims made by Aetium that consumers could receive carbon credits and potential payments for existing rooftop solar, electric vehicle use and owning trees, may be misleading or deceptive.
We have since received responses from the ACCC and Ad Standards to the referrals made regarding Aetium.
We have yet to receive a response from ASIC.
In its response to our referral, the Ad Standards Community Panel told us that it did not consider Aetium’s website as advertising material. It did not assess Aetium’s environmental claims. It stated:
“the Panel found that the material in question did not constitute ‘advertising’ as defined in the Code, and that the provisions of the Environmental Claims Code did not apply, and could not be said to have been breached.”
In its response to our referral, the ACCC told us:
“The ACCC does not make determinations as to whether particular conduct breaches the ACL, as only a court can do this.
The ACCC cannot pursue all matters that come to our attention. We exercise our discretion and focus our resources on considering possible contraventions of the laws we administer involving circumstances that will, or have the potential to, impact vulnerable consumers, harm the competitive process or result in widespread consumer or small business detriment. The ACCC manages risk proportionately and exercises discretion to direct resources to matters that provide the greatest overall benefit.
In considering your complaint we assessed the nature and potential impacts of the statements made, including considering how an ‘ordinary consumer’ is likely to interpret the statements in the circumstances and whether they would be misled. We also considered various changes made by Aetium in responses to these issues.
We do not consider that the statements made by Aetium raise sufficient concern under the ACL to warrant further action by the ACCC.”
Read the full responses below. Aetium's full response to the complaint is included in Ad Standards' Final Case Report:
Response from Ad Standards
Ad Standards Final Case Report
Response from the ACCC
Climate Integrity stands by the substantive concerns identified through our investigation of Aetium, including that the carbon credits offered by Aetium lack additionality, impose insufficient permanency requirements and are dependent on ‘avoidance’ measures that are unlikely to have a real impact on the climate.
There remains a gap in the regulation of voluntary carbon credits in Australia. No federal or state government authority, or industry body, currently regulates voluntary carbon credits schemes.
Consumers participating in voluntary carbon offset schemes remain vulnerable to low-integrity carbon credit schemes, and remain reliant on the generalised protections provided by the Australian Consumer Law and the enforcement of this law by the ACCC. This is a weak safety net for products marketed as “offsets” or “environmental services”, and Climate Integrity will continue to draw upon these laws to protect consumers from potentially misleading or deceptive claims about the claimed climate benefits of various products.
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:
The claimed emissions reductions lack additionality, and therefore do not represent real emissions reductions.
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.
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
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.