Auditors Fail in Role of Safeguarding Carbon Offsets: Study (2)

Auditors are failing in their role as third-party guarantors of the quality of carbon offsets, according to new academic research.

In a paper published Thursday in Science
, an international peer-reviewed journal, Cary Coglianese, a law and political science professor at University of Pennsylvania, and Cynthia Giles, a former senior adviser at the US Environmental Protection Agency, conclude that auditors selected and paid by the companies they inspect can’t affirm the credibility of the projects they assess.

This is largely due to “economic incentives and an unconscious bias to make findings that work to their client’s advantage,” ...