Junk carbon offset scheme too good to be true for EV and solar owners
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:
Ad Standards Final Case Report
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.
Climate Integrity analysis has revealed that a new carbon credit platform, Aetium, appears to be misleading consumers about the environmental benefits of its carbon credit scheme.
Aetium uses an online platform to issue carbon credits to consumers for using solar panels and electric vehicles they already own, with the prospect of payment. The platform offers carbon credits to buyers, such as individuals and businesses who want to ‘offset’ their emissions.
The company claims that buyers of the carbon credits listed on its “Exchange” are “supporting a project that actively avoids or removes CO2”, “supporting CO2 reductions that cancel out your CO2 footprint” and that the credits “accurately represent genuine CO2 reductions”.
The carbon credits issued by Aetium are not validated by any third-party certifier of voluntary carbon offsets or independent standards regime, nor are they certified by any government-operated crediting scheme.
Climate Integrity analysis of Aetium’s business has raised serious concerns about these claims, particularly that the platform claims its credits represent genuine C02 reductions when they do not meet the standard for additionality. (Additionality explained in next section)
“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,” Claire Snyder, Executive Director of Climate Integrity, said.
“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.”
To protect consumers from the scheme, Climate Integrity has filed a complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission outlining how the company may have breached Australian Consumer Law by engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct.
Climate Integrity has also filed a complaint to Ad Standards, stating that Aetium’s claims may be in breach of the Environmental Claims Code administered by the Australian Association of National Advertisers.
“Aetium’s claim that it aligns with the industry code of practice is another example of the integrity crisis in Australia’s carbon market. ” said Ms Snyder.
What is additionality and why does it matter?
Additionality
A key criteria for the creation of carbon credits is the concept of ‘additionality’.
A project, and the carbon credits it generates, can only be classified as ‘additional’ if the removal of carbon dioxide would not have occurred in the absence of the incentive. A requirement to achieve ‘additionality’ has been adopted by virtually all carbon crediting regimes and by climate scientists and refers to the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere beyond ‘business as usual’ practices.
As Aetium is issuing carbon credits to consumers for their existing solar panels, electric vehicles and for existing forests - the credits issued don’t satisfy the principle of ‘additionality’ and do not represent genuine reductions in carbon emissions.
Avoided Emissions
Further, the methodologies adopted by Aetium are based on the contentious concept of ‘avoided emissions’. This concept uses a flawed approach of calculating emissions reductions of activities when compared against hypothetical emissions intensive alternatives. ‘Avoided Emissions’ offsets cannot cancel out emissions, and claims of their environmental benefits are likely to mislead consumers.
What happens next?
Climate Integrity engaged lawyers at the Environmental Defenders Office to make the complaints to the ACCC and Ad Standards and looks forward to any response from those two regulatory bodies.
Climate Integrity also met with Aetium to raise its concerns. Aetium’s response disputed the definition of additionality that exists in the scientific literature and in carbon credit standards such as Verra, IVCM, the Climate Change Authority, characterising the meaning of ‘additionality’ as ‘grey’. Aetium is yet to sell carbon credits to the market.
Aetium is a signatory of the Carbon Market Institute’s (CMI) industry code of conduct, which states that its mission is; “To enhance the integrity, transparency and accountability of Australia’s carbon industry,...”, Climate Integrity has written to CMI to raise its concerns.
A response from the administrator of the Code of Conduct said that it does not regulate or assess the technical quality of carbon credits and that Climate Integrity’s concerns are outside of the scope of the code and would be more appropriately dealt with by a relevant regulator.
