Guidance on Voluntary Offsets
The university has committed to carbon removal as the university’s offset strategy. To support Stanford affiliates in voluntarily purchasing carbon removal offsets, Stanford’s Office of Sustainability has identified high-quality suppliers that meet the university’s rigorous Carbon Removal Guidelines. Affiliates may seek to purchase removals for activities such as events, travel, or operational impacts.
Stanford encourages its affiliates to first focus on direct emissions reductions through financially responsible means before using removals to address remaining, hard-to-abate emissions. The Office of Sustainability offers guidance to campus departments, programs, organizations, and individuals on purchasing carbon removals that complement Stanford’s direct emissions reduction efforts.
For Stanford affiliates ready to buy offsets:
California AB1305 requires Stanford to report any offsets purchased by the institution. For this reason, Stanford affiliates must follow all campus procurement guidelines when purchasing carbon offsets and credits. In alignment with these policies, all purchased credits must be within the calendar year they were purchased. When credits are used to offset emissions within Stanford’s emissions inventory, they may also be applied toward university-level greenhouse gas accounting.
For suppliers interested in being evaluated:
Frequently Asked Questions
What are carbon removal offsets?
To compensate for hard-to-abate greenhouse gas emissions, carbon removal offsets support projects that actively remove an equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere.
Carbon removal projects are assessed individually for alignment with Stanford’s carbon removal criteria. Both nature-based and engineered projects may meet our standards. Learn the difference:
- Nature-based carbon removal includes strategies such as reforestation, soil carbon enhancement, regenerative agriculture, and coastal and marine restoration. These solutions offer lower-cost pathways, earlier scalability appropriate for short- to medium-term projects, with co-benefits which support biodiversity and community resilience. These approaches require robust measurement and verification methods and permanence safeguards to ensure integrity.
- Engineered carbon removal includes solutions such as direct air capture and storage (DACCS) and enhanced rock weathering.
- Hybrid solutions include biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS), such as with biochar or bio-oil, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). These solutions are highly scalable with verified permanence and measurement accuracy, and are expected to dominate markets. These approaches often face higher costs, larger energy demand, and require strong environmental and safety standards and greater consideration towards social co-benefits.
What role does carbon removal play in Stanford’s Climate Action Plan?
The guidance on purchasing voluntary offsets supports Stanford’s broader commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Learn about how carbon removals fit into Stanford’s long-term strategy for climate action.
What are Stanford’s Carbon Removal Guidelines?
Stanford’s Climate Action Plan established the Stanford Carbon Removal Guidelines to inform the selection of high-quality carbon removal projects. The guidelines provide a rigorous framework for evaluating project quality against 11 core principles.
Developed through an extensive review of global best practices and validated by Stanford faculty experts, these guidelines ensure that carbon removal procurement is credible, durable, and transparent. A faculty–staff committee, coordinated by the OOS and the Doerr School of Sustainability, will regularly update these standards in alignment with global best practices.
What are examples of carbon removal projects?
- Enhanced Rock Weathering: Permanently captures atmospheric CO₂ in bicarbonate materials through accelerating natural chemical reactions, providing durable carbon removal while supporting soil health. As of late 2025, current prices average $300 to $450 per ton (Frontier, Trellis, AgFunder).
- Agroforestry: Combined with robust monitoring technology, integrating agricultural land management with trees sequesters carbon while restoring ecosystems and generating verifiable benefits for farmers. 2025 prices average $25 to $70 per ton (Sylvera, Forest Trends, MIT, AgFunder).
- Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage: Stores organic waste by injecting it into deep geological formations or conversion into biochar or bio-oil, slowing biomass decomposition for high integrity and scalable carbon removal. In 2025, prices vary by approach, but average $100 to $400 per ton (Isometric, Trellis, CDR.fyi, Frontier).
How does Stanford monitor current and future carbon offset pricing?
Carbon dioxide removal prices vary by method. As part of its climate action planning efforts, OOS monitors pricing and performance trends through key data sources, including: CDR.fyi, Frontier Climate, Allied Offsets, BloombergNEF, Trellis, and Sylvera.
How does the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability engage with carbon removal?
The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability prioritizes research and partnerships on greenhouse gas removal as its foundational Flagship Destination. The school works to identify high-quality carbon removal solutions, improve removal technologies, build removal markets, and develop tools to measure and evaluate removal strategies. Learn more about greenhouse gas removal.