Beyond Solar: How RECs and Carbon Offsets Help Businesses Meet Sustainability Goals

Earth Day is a moment, but greener energy is a conversation we have with clients all year.

When businesses come to us asking how to make their energy greener, many expect the conversation to start with solar panels. It’s a fair place to start. Installing on-site solar can be a great way to reduce your grid consumption and replace it with a sustainable alternative. But the economics don’t always work for every business, every site, or every timeline.

When solar isn’t the right fit, or isn’t enough on its own, most commercial buyers still have meaningful sustainability options. The biggest one is usually in how they’re already buying the energy they’re already using.

Two tools we help clients work with

Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) for electricity

When a client buys a REC, they’re funding a renewable project :wind, solar, sometimes hydro, and claiming the environmental attributes against their own electricity use.

How many RECs a business actually needs depends on something most people don’t think about: their local grid mix. A client in Quebec, where most electricity already comes from hydro, needs far fewer RECs than one in Alberta, where the grid still leans heavily on natural gas. It’s a question we work through with every client individually, because the answer is different for every one of them.

Carbon offsets for natural gas

A client funds an emissions-reducing project — reforestation, methane capture, industrial efficiency to offset the emissions from their gas consumption. Carbon offsets are simpler to structure than RECs, because natural gas isn’t tied to a local supply mix the same way electricity is.

What we talk about with clients

A few things usually come up as we work through the options:

  • Projects closer to your point of consumption tend to cost more, and they’re often worth it for the credibility and traceability they bring to your sustainability reporting.
  • RECs and carbon offsets can be bundled with your energy supply contract, or purchased separately. They also work in regulated markets, which surprises a lot of buyers.
  • The ideal path is usually to reduce consumption first — through efficiency, on-site generation where it makes sense, and smarter load management — and then use RECs and offsets to cover what’s left. That’s how most sustainability managers we work with think about it.

Why this matters for commercial buyers

For businesses with sustainability targets, investor reporting, or stakeholders asking questions, RECs and carbon offsets are two of the most practical tools available. They’re also two of the most commonly misused. A big part of what we do is helping businesses get them right: matched to the right grid, the right projects, and the right budget.

If that’s a conversation worth having for your business, our team is here for it.

Happy Earth Day from all of us at MPN. 🌱