Companies revolt over carbon offsetting

Some of the UK's largest companies are threatening to boycott government plans to regulate carbon-offsetting projects.

Civil servants will hold a series of workshops with companies next month to try to persuade them to adopt the new code. This would only recognise larger, more expensive projects, such as the clean-up of a coal plant in China, which are more thoroughly audited.

But many companies say that this would exclude community-based projects, which consumers are more likely to back.

Keith Richards, head of consumer affairs at the Association of British Travel Agents, said: "Tourists would rather see their money going towards a smaller-scale project in places they are likely to visit."

Tour operator First Choice agreed: "We are going with gold- standard [community] schemes for the time being."

HSBC is also urging the Government to include the smaller schemes in the new code, as is Virgin Atlantic. British Airways said it was less prepared to invest in the government code because of the Chancellor's doubling of air passenger duty in the pre-Budget report.