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You might have heard the terms climate mitigation and climate adaptation before and wondered what they mean, and what role they play in achieving net-zero?
We speak to businesses every day that ask us these kinds of questions, so we’re here to break it down in this article. As part of this guide we’ll cover:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What are the definitions of climate mitigation and climate adaptation?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What are the climate strategies associated with them?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What&#8217;s the purpose of each approach?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What kind of costs are associated with each approach?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What’s their role in achieving net-zero?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What types of projects do they involve?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How are the projects certified?</li>
</ul>

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<h2>Definition of climate mitigation and climate adaptation</h2>
Climate mitigation
Involves actions taken to reduce or prevent the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, with the goal being to limit the extent of climate change.
Climate adaptation
Refers to measures taken to adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already occurring or are projected to occur. Adaptation focuses on minimising the negative effects of climate change, and building resilience to climate-related risks.

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<h2>Types of climate mitigation and climate adaptation strategies</h2>
Climate mitigation
Strategies include transitioning to renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency, implementing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to capture CO2 emissions, and promoting afforestation and reforestation efforts to increase carbon sequestration.
Climate adaptation
Strategies include developing climate-resilient infrastructure, implementing water conservation practices, establishing early warning systems for extreme weather events, shifting to more resilient agricultural practices, and protecting and restoring natural ecosystems.

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<h2>What is the key purpose for climate mitigation and climate adaptation</h2>
Climate mitigation
The primary objective is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, thereby slowing the rate of climate change and its associated impacts, such as rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and disruptions to ecosystems.
Climate adaptation
The main objective is to reduce the vulnerability of human and natural systems to the impacts of climate change, enhance their capacity to cope with climate-related risks, and promote long-term resilience in the face of changing climatic conditions.

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<h2>Climate mitigation and climate adaptation costs</h2>
Climate mitigation
Measures often involve up-front costs, but this can lead to long-term cost savings. Over time, the adoption of new technologies costs less and results in greater benefits, such as we have seen with renewable energy technologies.
Climate adaptation
Measures also incur costs, but these are typically focused on adapting infrastructure to withstand changing environmental conditions. Adaptation costs may vary depending on the scale of the project and the vulnerability of the affected regions.

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<h2>Role in achieving net-zero</h2>
Climate mitigation
Interventions are crucial to achieving net-zero by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Mitigation efforts aim to balance sources of emissions with sinks, ultimately leading to net-zero emissions. 
Climate adaption
Is essential for building resilience to climate impacts, but does not directly contribute to achieving net-zero emissions. Instead, adaptation measures focus on minimising the negative effects of climate change on communities and ecosystems, enhancing their ability to cope with climate-related risks.

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<h2>Types of climate mitigation and climate adaptation projects</h2>
Climate mitigation
Projects reduce greenhouse gas emissions or enhance sequestration. These can include renewable energy projects, energy efficiency improvements, afforestation and reforestation initiatives, adoption of low-carbon transportation systems, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. 
Climate adaptation
Projects focus on building resilience to the impacts of climate change. This may involve constructing climate-resilient infrastructure, implementing water conservation strategies, developing early warning systems for extreme weather events, restoring ecosystems, and transforming agricultural practices.

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<h2>Certification</h2>
Climate mitigation
Projects often undergo certification processes to verify their carbon reduction or removal activities and ensure their compliance with established standards such as the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the Gold Standard, or the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol.
Climate adaptation 
Projects have no specific certification schemes, but some organisations may seek recognition for their climate resilience efforts through programs focused on sustainability or climate adaptation planning. However, certification for adaptation projects is less standardised compared to mitigation projects.

<h2>In conclusion</h2>
Climate mitigation is primarily concerned with reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and limiting further climate change. Whereas climate adaptation is mostly concerned with building resilience and adapting to the impacts of climate change. Both approaches are critical for addressing the challenges of climate change and transitioning towards a sustainable and resilient future.

<h2>Is your business ready to take climate action?</h2>
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UK Voluntary Carbon Market Guide: Best Practices for Climate Action

The voluntary carbon market plays an important role in corporate climate strategies – but its effectiveness relies on buyers doing due diligence and rigorous quality assessment on each project, as well as placing the purchase of credits in the right place in the climate journey.
To ensure meaningful climate impact, businesses must develop a comprehensive carbon strategy and find ways to fund only high-quality credits in the voluntary carbon market – and this guide shows you how to do so with Ecologi.

<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<ul>
<li>When to buy carbon credits</li>
<li>Our new carbon projects assessment framework</li>
<li>Ecologi&#8217;s core due diligence principles</li>
<li>How Ecologi scores and ranks carbon credit projects</li>
<li>Questions to ask your carbon credit supplier</li>
<li>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</li>
</ul>

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<h2>When should businesses buy carbon credits in the voluntary market?</h2>
Businesses must not use credits in place of making direct, measurable reductions in their emissions. Instead, follow these steps to ensure you buy your carbon credits on the right step of your corporate climate action journey, and in the right way:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Measure your emissions first – to allow you to understand where your business’s emissions are coming from. 
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set science-based targets and work towards them – set ambitious targets aligned with the SBTi and compatible with the global 1.5ºC warming target.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) – design your BVCM portfolio to work alongside your decarbonisation plan and address your unabated emissions in each reporting year. Align it with SBTi guidance and the Oxford Principles. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Buy high-quality carbon credits – use this guide to ensure the carbon credits you buy meet rigorous quality standards. Remember, under the SBTi framework you’ll also need permanent carbon removal credits for neutralising your residual emissions when you reach your net-zero date.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Disclose and report transparently – publicly disclose information about your carbon credit purchases, and clearly communicate the limited role of carbon credits in your broader sustainability strategy.</li>
</ol>

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<h2>Ecologi&#8217;s carbon project assessment framework</h2>
In April 2025, we published a report summarising how we assess carbon credit projects against our rigorous proprietary rubric. A snapshot of what goes into our carbon credit project assessment is below, or you <a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">download the full whitepaper here</a>.

<h2>Carbon project due diligence: Ecologi’s core principles</h2>
At Ecologi, we maintain general due diligence principles which we apply universally across the voluntary carbon market, to support our efforts to supply only high-quality carbon credits.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">ICROA-endorsed standards only – we supply credits exclusively from carbon standards which are ICROA-endorsed.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Responsive to ICVCM decisions – we support the ICVCM’s two-tick approach to providing CCP-Approval to project methodologies, and we go further still, to assess individual projects on their merits and limitations as well.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Keep the carbon credit life cycle as short as possible – 75% of our credits in 2024 came directly from project developers and their nominated dispensaries (as opposed to intermediaries on the secondary market), maximising the proportion of purchase price which goes to the developer.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Locally-appropriate projects only – we take care to ensure that supported projects are being applied in appropriate geographies, where they can have the greatest impact.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Deep project-level scrutiny – our extensive assessment criteria are specific to each type of project, and we assess every project against these criteria, ensuring the project’s specifics have been taken into account.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Methodological consensus – we synthesise data we receive from our partners Sylvera, BeZero Carbon, Calyx Global and Renoster) with our own in-house analysis to uncover where there is consensus about project quality, and improve confidence.</li>
</ul>

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<h2>How to evaluate carbon credits: Ecologi&#8217;s scoring methodology</h2>
We designed a three-layer assessment process which takes into account the merits and limitations of the carbon standard used, the carbon credit methodology used, and of the individual project design.
The tables below summarise some of the data inputs we use at each stage.

<h3>Assessment level: Carbon Standard</h3>
Examples: Gold Standard, Verra, Puro Earth, Isometric, Plan Vivo.

<h3>Assessment level: Methodology (or ‘Protocol’)</h3>
Examples: GS TPDDTEC, VM0048, ACM0002.

<h3>Assessment level: Project</h3>
Examples: GS 10790, VCS 1571.

Criteria in the assessment are categorised as either quality criteria or risk criteria, and are segmented by our three pillars of impact: Climate, Nature and People. Based on how it meets each criterion, the project gains points for quality criteria, and loses points for excess risk – ultimately giving a risk-adjusted value out of 100 for each of these pillars.
Having gathered our risk-adjusted pillar scores, we use our own unique scoring formula which weights the risk-adjusted Climate score of the project equally with the combined risk-adjusted Nature and People scores. The formula then produces an ‘overall’ score (also out of 100) for the project. In order to be supplied by Ecologi, projects must meet a minimum overall score of 80, and must achieve no lower than 65 in any given risk-adjusted pillar score.

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<h2>Key questions to ask carbon credit suppliers</h2>
Selecting the right carbon credit provider is important to help guide you to make informed choices as part of your corporate sustainability strategy. Before purchasing carbon credits, businesses should ask:
<h3>Project quality </h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you assess/validate/underwrite project quality? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do your projects get good ratings from the ratings agencies? If so, what ratings are they?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you source credits directly from project developers, or from the secondary market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you monitor projects over time to ensure continued success, and how do you remedy it, if a project&#8217;s quality drops?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Due diligence</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you ensure you are supporting the right projects in the right locations?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you account for project permanence and mitigate risks?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What makes your projects additional?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you assess the project&#8217;s impacts on climate, nature and people?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Positioning</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you contribute to the development of a high integrity voluntary carbon market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you align your portfolios with the Oxford Principles? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you reflect ICVCM guidance on carbon credit methodologies and technologies?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you build multi-year portfolios that align to mid- &amp; long-term SBTs?</li>
</ul>
As the voluntary carbon market evolves, corporate buyers have the power and the responsibility to demand high-impact credits to drive real climate progress. This means buyers have a responsibility to do due diligence before placing an order for carbon credits.

<h2>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</h2>
As a business committed to corporate climate action, understanding the voluntary carbon market is essential for making informed decisions about carbon credits. Our comprehensive whitepaper provides deeper insights into creating an effective sustainability strategy.
<a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download our full whitepaper</a> to learn how your business can navigate the voluntary carbon market with confidence.

<h2>Connect with one of our climate experts</h2>
Please complete our form to arrange a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your goals and get a tailored solution for your business.

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