finance
The economics of 1 tonne of CO₂
The price of 1 tonne of carbon ranges from $4 (cheap forestry) to $700 (DAC). Here's why the spread is so wide, and what the right number looks like for travel.
The fundamentals
The price of 1 tonne of carbon ranges from $4 (cheap forestry) to $700 (DAC). Here's why the spread is so wide, and what the right number looks like for travel. The finance category sits at the intersection of climate science, corporate accounting, and traveller behaviour — three audiences that rarely share a vocabulary, which is why so much of the public conversation about carbon ends up talking past itself.
To understand what's at stake, start with the unit. A carbon credit, an emission, a reduction, a removal, an offset — these all reduce to a single tonne of carbon-dioxide-equivalent (tCO₂e). Methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, and other greenhouse gases convert to that same unit using IPCC global-warming-potential factors. Once everything is denominated in tCO₂e, the comparisons become possible.
The price ladder
Voluntary carbon prices in 2026 span roughly $4 (forestry avoidance, low-quality vintage) to $700 (engineered removal, geological storage). That 175× spread is not market failure — it reflects real differences in permanence (does the tonne stay locked away for 1,000 years or 30?), additionality (would it have happened without the buyer?), and co-benefits (biodiversity, water, indigenous community income).
For an individual traveller, the spread is mostly invisible — your booking platform picks the credit. For corporate buyers, the spread is the entire game. A 100,000-tonne corporate offset programme can vary from $400,000 to $70 million depending purely on credit selection. Most large buyers run a blended portfolio: a small slice of high-cost removal (DAC, biochar) for permanence, a larger slice of nature-based removal (afforestation, mangroves) for affordability, and avoidance credits only where the additionality argument is genuinely strong.
The IMPT angle
When you book a hotel through IMPT, one verified tonne of CO₂ retires automatically against your booking. The credit comes from a Verra- or Gold Standard-listed project, default-weighted toward removal-track methodologies (biochar and mangrove restoration). The retirement is recorded on-chain with your booking ID, queryable for life. No add-on fee, no upsell at checkout, no opt-in box.
It is not a perfect climate solution — no single travel booking is. It is, however, one of the cleanest carbon accounting units in the consumer travel category, and it survives the same questions you would ask of a corporate climate disclosure: is it real, is it additional, is it permanent, is it verifiable? The answer to all four is yes, and the registry record is one click away from your confirmation email.
What to do next
Two practical actions. First — if you've booked a hotel through any platform in the last year, check whether the offset they advertised actually retired to a registry serial in your name. Most don't. Second — when you next book travel, choose a platform where the offset is included by default rather than upsold at checkout, where the credit is removal-weighted rather than avoidance-only, and where the retirement record is queryable by your booking ID. That short checklist filters out roughly 90% of the marketing claims in the category.
Book a hotel — one tonne of CO₂ retired automatically.
Every IMPT hotel booking retires one Verra- or Gold Standard-listed carbon credit on your behalf. No add-on fee, no upsell, no catalogue. Just verified, on-chain retirement.