The Minister of Environmental Affairs has published the Air Quality Offsets Guideline under section 24J(a) of the NEMA. The Air Quality Offset Management Guideline is aimed at providing a guide to the industry or proponents, government entities, consultants, the general public and other key stakeholders regarding appropriate principles to be adhered to in assessing the need and in designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluation of air quality offsets.
In terms of the Guidelines, environmental offsets are “generally defined as measures that counterbalance, counteract, or compensate for the adverse impacts of an activity on the environment. They are generally "balancing activities" carried out to counterbalance the adverse environmental impacts to achieve a "no net environmental loss" or a "net environmental benefit" outcome (Suvantola et al, 2005). All adequate offsets have common characteristics of having a clear objective:”
