It's mostly feel-good greenwashing, as far as I can tell.
Bill Gates recommends a company for doing offsetting that actually pulls carbon out of the air and sequesters it underground, removing it from the carbon cycle: https://climeworks.com/subscriptions
It appears to cost ~$1/kg, but I'm guessing that will come down substantially if they're able to scale it up.
Good point. Not sure if they're allowed to grow for that long, I think some options are on timberland. But if they are, it seems like a reasonable short-term help.
In order to be usable, you 10+ years anyway. And in case you don't burn the wood, the CO2 stays out of the CO2 cycle for even more years anyway.
And by planting the right kind of trees, we could even go a long way to repair and safe our forests which are suffering from climate change and monocultures.
Bill Gates recommends a company for doing offsetting that actually pulls carbon out of the air and sequesters it underground, removing it from the carbon cycle: https://climeworks.com/subscriptions
It appears to cost ~$1/kg, but I'm guessing that will come down substantially if they're able to scale it up.