Partner Programme
A carbon offset and clean water access programme. Gold Standard methodology, generated in South Africa, with socio-economic impact you can report.
The challenge
Carbon liabilities are rising. The tax rate stepped up sharply at the start of 2026 and the offset allowance widened at the same time, so more organisations are looking at offsets than ever. The trouble is what is on the shelf. A great deal of it is generated far away, in a landscape a South African board has no line of sight into, and the category has taken real reputational damage from projects that turned out to be worth less than they claimed.
There is also a practical constraint that catches people out. Under South Africa's carbon offset regulations an offset only counts against carbon tax if the project is wholly undertaken in the Republic, sits outside an activity that is itself taxed, and is certified under one of three approved standards. An imported credit, however well intentioned, does not qualify.
PureFlow Amanzi is a carbon offset and clean water access programme in the rural Eastern Cape, run by iThemba Kuluntu NPC, a women-led Public Benefit Organisation. Households that currently boil water over wood receive gravity-fed filtration instead. Less wood burned means fewer emissions, and it also means safe water, less preventable illness, and hours given back to the women and caregivers who carry that burden. GCX is carbon technical advisory partner to the programme.
What you are buying
The carbon is the instrument. What separates this from a generic credit is everything that has to happen on the ground to produce it.
Households treating water by boiling burn wood to do it. Reliable filtration removes that need, and the emissions with it, continuously rather than as a one-off event.
The programme runs in Port St Johns and Ingquza Hill in the Eastern Cape. That matters commercially as well as ethically: an offset must be generated in the Republic to count against carbon tax.
Gravity-fed, non-electric, chemical-free filtration, suited to rural conditions where power and consumables cannot be assumed. Lower exposure to unsafe water, and less preventable illness.
Boiling costs time, fuel and money, and that burden falls most heavily on women and caregivers. Removing it is one of the most direct social returns the programme produces.
Safe water reinforced in schools and ECD centres, alongside local assembly, distribution, onboarding and monitoring work that creates income-linked participation in the area.
Household onboarding, follow-up support, delivery tracking and verification, so what you report rests on delivery rather than on an assumption.
Why it holds up
An established Gold Standard methodology, not a bespoke one.
What that means
Local origin and an approved standard are the two tests that matter.
What that means
Socio-economic delivery is the product, not a marketing wrapper.
What that means
Volumes, pricing and the registry process are scoped per buyer against the current methodology. We would rather quote conservatively than revise downwards later.
Enquire about volumes →How it fits
Methodology selection, additionality, registration pathway, pricing basis and revenue structuring are the same disciplines whether the project is a corporate decarbonisation programme or a rural safe water rollout. GCX acts as carbon technical advisory partner here, which is the same work our Climate and Carbon team does for clients directly.
If you are weighing offsets as part of a wider carbon strategy, that conversation is usually better had before the purchase than after it. Offsets are the last step in a decarbonisation plan, not a substitute for one.
Tell us your volume and timeline and we will come back with what the programme can support, the registry process involved, and the socio-economic outcomes attached to it.