Across the globe, companies are under increasing pressure to take responsibility for their environmental impact. With stakeholders, customers, and regulators calling for meaningful initiatives, many organisations are setting ambitious net-zero targets. A key step in this journey is to compensate for irreducible emissions through carbon units (also known as carbon credits).
Close-up of a man planting a tree with wind turbines in the background. AI generated picture.
Carbon credits come in different forms, but two of the most prominent are renewable energy credits and nature-based carbon credits. Renewable energy projects, such as wind farms and solar installations, are often a common choice for businesses beginning their sustainability journey. They are familiar, technology-driven, and directly tied to reducing emissions from fossil fuel use.
Yet, a growing number of companies are discovering the transformative potential of nature-based solutions for businesses. By investing in forest carbon credits or reforestation carbon offset projects, companies can do more than balance their carbon footprint—they can help restore ecosystems, protect biodiversity, and support communities.
Local farmer working on an avocado plantation in Kenya. Hongera Reforestation Project, Green Earth.
In this blog, we’ll explore the nuances of nature-based vs renewable energy carbon credits, examining their methodologies, risks, and co-benefits. Our aim is to give you the clarity to make informed decisions that not only advance your green goals but also contribute to a truly nature-positive approach to corporate sustainability.
Understanding carbon credits
Carbon credits—also called carbon units—are the building blocks of today’s voluntary carbon market. At their core, each credit represents the reduction or removal of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e). For companies working towards net-zero targets they provide a way to compensate for unavoidable emissions while investing in projects that deliver environmental benefits.
An illustration showing how tradable certificates used to offset emissions work.
There are two primary pathways for generating credits:
- Renewable energy credits—created when projects like wind farms, solar installations, or hydro plants displace fossil-fuel electricity on the grid. These credits represent avoided emissions, ensuring that a unit of clean power replaces what would otherwise have come from coal, oil, or gas.
- Nature-based carbon credits—issued when projects protect or restore ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, or mangroves. These projects can both avoid emissions (by preventing deforestation) and remove carbon (through reforestation and soil restoration). By investing in agroforestry carbon credits, cookstove credits, or reforestation carbon offset projects, companies not only offset emissions but also contribute to healthier landscapes and more resilient communities.
This distinction between nature-based vs renewable energy carbon credits is critical. While both serve a role in corporate environmental strategies, their methodologies, risks, and co-benefits vary. Understanding these differences is the first step in identifying the best carbon credits for companies reaching net zero.
Read more: High-quality carbon credits vs regular carbon credits: what sets them apart?
Nature-based solutions: Restoring more than carbon
When businesses invest in nature-based carbon credits, they support projects that go far beyond simple carbon accounting. These initiatives include afforestation and reforestation projects, agroforestry, regenerative agriculture, energy-efficient cookstoves, peatland restoration, or the protection of wetlands and mangroves. Each of these activities helps remove carbon from the atmosphere or prevent its release, but the benefits extend much further.
First, nature-based solutions directly tackle the carbon challenge. Global analyses suggest that protecting and restoring ecosystems could deliver up to one-third of the environmental mitigation needed by 2030. Unlike avoidance-only approaches, these projects also provide true carbon removal, sequestering tonnes of CO₂ in biomass and soils. This makes them especially relevant as companies pursue the best carbon credits for reaching net zero.
Read more: What makes Green Earth’s reforestation projects unique?
Second, the benefits of forest conservation carbon credits stretch well beyond the environment only. Forests host an estimated 80% of terrestrial biodiversity, regulate water cycles, and secure healthy soils. By funding conservation, companies help preserve endangered species, protect watersheds, and maintain ecosystem services that underpin global food and water security. Projects like mangrove restoration not only store vast amounts of carbon but also buffer coastal communities from storms and flooding, delivering both mitigation and adaptation outcomes.
Bulindi chimpanzee resting in its natural habitat. Bulindi Agroforestry and Chimpanzee Conservation Project, Green Earth.
Finally, nature-based solutions generate meaningful social impacts. Many projects are rooted in community partnerships, offering employment in sustainable forestry, agroforestry, or conservation activities. They strengthen land rights, provide income opportunities, and often channel finance directly into education, healthcare, or gender empowerment. This is why many corporations turn to corporate sustainability with nature-based solutions—they can demonstrate measurable action while contributing to broader social and ecological goals.
Read more: The social impact of Green Earth’s projects
In short, nature-based carbon credits provide a holistic package: They remove emissions, build resilience, and restore the natural systems we all depend on. This combination of environment, biodiversity, and community value makes them stand out as a superior choice for companies serious about long-term sustainability.
Energy-based credits: Driving the clean energy transition
Renewable energy credits originate from projects such as wind farms, solar power plants, or hydropower facilities. By displacing fossil-fuel electricity, these projects generate measurable emissions reductions. Each unit of clean power avoids a tonne of carbon that would otherwise have been released, making renewable credits a cornerstone of many corporate green strategies.
Solar panels. AI generated picture.
One of their strengths is scalability. A single large wind or solar installation can prevent hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO₂ emissions over its lifetime. The results are straightforward to monitor: electricity generation is measured in megawatt-hours, and the corresponding emissions avoided can be calculated with precision. This clarity has made renewable projects an attractive option for companies starting their carbon journey.
Renewable energy credits also contribute to cleaner air and healthier communities. By reducing reliance on coal, diesel, and oil, they cut pollutants like sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, improving public health outcomes. In regions where access to electricity is limited, renewable projects also bring energy access, powering schools, businesses, and households in ways that improve quality of life and economic opportunity.
Read more: Preparing for the future: How SMEs can align with net-zero targets
Still, it’s important to recognise the role they play. Renewable projects are fundamentally about avoiding possible future emissions, not about removing carbon already in the atmosphere. More importantly, they lack additional environmental and socio-economic co-benefits. This is why many companies now look to complement their renewable credit portfolios with nature-based carbon credits, which can combine environmental action with biodiversity and community benefits.
Comparing nature-based vs renewable energy carbon credits
Both nature-based carbon credits and renewable energy credits are valid tools for corporate sustainability strategies, yet they differ in how they deliver results and what risks or co-benefits they carry.
Permanence
Nature-based projects face a unique challenge: the carbon they store in forests, soils, or wetlands must remain locked away for decades. Risks like wildfires, pests, or illegal logging can threaten that permanence. To mitigate this, standards require monitoring and buffer reserves of credits. By contrast, renewable energy projects provide permanence in a different way: once a tonne of emissions is avoided through clean energy generation, it cannot be released. The benefit is immediate and irreversible, though it doesn’t equate to carbon removal.
Leakage
A common concern in land-use projects is permanence and leakage in carbon offset projects. Protecting one forest can sometimes shift deforestation pressure to another area. Standards account for this by deducting potential leakage from project totals. Renewable energy projects generally avoid this problem—replacing fossil generation on a grid does not typically cause emissions to rise elsewhere.
Read more: What business leaders need to know before buying carbon offsets
Co-benefits
Here, nature-based credits truly stand out. The benefits of nature conservation carbon credits include biodiversity protection, water security, soil health, and improved livelihoods for local communities. Renewable energy credits bring benefits too, such as cleaner air and better public health, but they don’t regenerate ecosystems or provide the same depth of ecological or social services.
Close-up of a woman preparing a meal using an energy-efficient cookstove. Hongera Energy Efficient Cookstoves Project, Green Earth.
Corporate strategy
When evaluating nature-based vs renewable energy carbon credits, the decision often comes down to impact priorities. Renewable energy supports the clean energy transition, but forest carbon credits and reforestation carbon offset projects directly restore nature and offer tangible stories for corporate sustainability with nature-based solutions. For companies striving for leadership in net-zero, many experts see nature-based solutions as the best carbon credits for companies reaching net zero, precisely because they deliver both carbon and co-benefits.
The strategic value of nature-based solutions
The global energy transition is already well underway. Renewables like wind and solar are rapidly scaling, often supported by policy incentives, more efficient technology, and market demand. In many regions, these projects would happen regardless of carbon finance. That makes renewable energy credits valuable for decarbonisation, but less distinctive as an offset strategy for companies seeking to demonstrate additional impact.
By contrast, nature-based carbon credits fill a gap that no other solution can. Forest carbon credits and reforestation carbon offset projects not only balance emissions, they actively restore ecosystems, enhance biodiversity, and deliver resilience for communities. In other words, they provide a unique value for nature and society that extends far beyond carbon.
Read more: Why scope 3 emissions are your biggest blind spot—and what to do about it
While the expansion of renewables is vital for global decarbonisation, much of that growth is already driven by falling technology costs and strong policy support. This means many renewable projects would proceed even without carbon finance. Nature-based carbon credits, on the other hand, often depend directly on offset revenues to protect forests, restore degraded land, or conserve biodiversity. That dependency makes them uniquely valuable: without investment, these ecosystems risk continued degradation, along with the loss of the carbon they store and the services they provide to society.
For companies building credible climate strategies, this matters. Choosing corporate sustainability with nature-based solutions means contributing to goals that stakeholders increasingly demand: nature-positive outcomes, ecosystem restoration, and community empowerment. Where renewable energy projects drive progress that is largely inevitable, nature-based solutions channel finance to interventions that might not otherwise happen, ensuring that environmental action delivers broader benefits for people and the planet.
Reaching your corporate sustainability goals
For companies evaluating their offset strategy, the first step is to take stock of their current reliance on renewable energy credits. While these play an important role in supporting the energy transition, many businesses now seek credits that can deliver more than avoided emissions alone.
Exploring nature-based carbon credits offers that broader impact. Investing in forest carbon credits or reforestation carbon offset projects not only compensates emissions but also channels finance into protecting ecosystems and strengthening communities. To ensure credibility, buyers should look for projects certified under recognised carbon credit quality standards such as Verra’s VCS, Gold Standard, or Plan Vivo, ideally with additional labels that verify biodiversity and community benefits.
Read more: Who’s who in the carbon market: Key institutions and frameworks and what they do
The most effective portfolios are those that align carbon investments with long-term goals. For businesses aiming for leadership in climate action, this means prioritising the best carbon credits for companies reaching net zero—credits that combine nature integrity with measurable ecological and social co-benefits. By doing so, companies position themselves not just as carbon-neutral, but as contributors to a more resilient, nature-positive economy.
Partnering for a nature-positive future with Green Earth
Carbon credits are not created equal. Renewable energy credits play an important role in decarbonising the global energy system, but they are only one piece of the solution. Nature-based carbon credits stand out for their ability to remove carbon, protect biodiversity, and deliver benefits for communities and ecosystems alike. For companies aiming not just to reach net zero, but to lead with purpose, these credits represent an unparalleled opportunity.
At Green Earth, we design and deliver projects that bring this vision to life. From large-scale reforestation carbon offset projects to cookstove carbon credits certified under Gold Standard or Verra, our work ensures that every credit is tied to tangible environmental and social impact. Our projects regenerate landscapes, restore wildlife habitats, and provide sustainable livelihoods, creating a ripple effect of value for nature and society. They also support multiple Sustainable Development Goals.
Landscape view of a newly planted forest in Uganda. Bulindi Agroforestry and Chimpanzee Conservation Project, Green Earth.
What sets us apart is our holistic approach: We don’t just sell credits; we are an end-to-end developer supporting companies throughout their entire sustainability journey—measuring footprints, crafting pathways to net zero, and building portfolios of the best carbon credits. With Green Earth as your partner, you can be confident that your investments are making a real difference and telling a powerful story of corporate sustainability with nature-based solutions.
Now is the moment to go beyond offsetting and embrace regeneration. With Green Earth, your business can contribute to a greener planet while securing its place as a leader in the sustainability transition.
