New carbon offset guide

The Suzuki Foundation and Pembina Institute want you to remember that not all Carbon Offset Programs are created equal. After being bombarded with questions from customers about who has the “best” carbon offset credits, the two organizations decided to make the answers a little easier. By looking at a series of criteria, they ranked 20 notable carbon offset vendors from best to worst.

The resulting Purchasing Carbon Offsets Guide is meant to help customers decide where to put their carbon offset dollars. According to the Suzuki Foundation, the most important thing to consider is whether the offset will really help the climate.

The key criterion is what they call “addtionality.” Because there’s no extra benefit by paying for something that would have happened anyway, “additionality” ensures things like air travel are offset. Higher marks were awarded to vendors with strong “additionality.”Naturally, some vendors are upset by the results. Some of the criteria for the ranking had little to do with the quality of their carbon credits. This includes criteria such as accounting, and transparency. Those who objected said these in particular were judged unfairly.

One of the vendors most upset is the one selected as the official carbon-offset supplier of the Olympics, Vancouver-based Offsetters. They placed 11^th on the list, but the Pacific Carbon Trust recently compiled a similar list, and ranked them first.

The moral of the story? There are no easy answers. A guide may exist, but consumers are still encouraged to do their own research.

Even with carbon credits, the old maxim holds: caveat emptor.

Carbon offset market boom

In slow economic times, business is booming in the carbon-offset market. Perhaps it’s because the American Clean Energy and Security Act requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 17% by 2020, and 83% by 2050.

Voluntary carbon-offset programs have traditionally been available to major companies, corporations and businesses. Essentially, they’re allowed to exceed emission targets if they buy credits from an “overperforming” company. Now, Joe Consumer can get in the game as well.

My Emission Exchange is a free carbon-offset marketplace where members tally their carbon footprint and actually sell carbon credits to bidding companies, all of which is pocketed by the member. Calculate your current carbon footprint on their handy Express Calculator.

 
It doesn’t really matter what it is right now; your goal is to reduce it by 10% annually. If you can do that, you earn carbon credits which can be sold at market value. What better way to encourage people to consider the effect their actions has on the environment, than to pay them to correct them? Governments have been slow to realize this, so it took a group of intrepid entrepreneurs to take things into their own hands.

Best of all, the benefits go directly to those doing their best to effect change.

Three weeks and counting

That’s roughly how much time is left until mid-August, which is when the federal government winds up a public review of its proposal for a national carbon-offset program which would set up tradeable pollution permits. The draft version, published in the June 13 issue of the Canada Gazette Part I, is designed to elicit comments which the government will consider in putting together a final regulatory announcement of its proposed Offset System for Greenhouse Gases in the Canada Gazette Part II in the fall.

“We will be rigorous in ensuring that credits will only be issued for projects that actually reduce the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions,” Environment Minister Jim Prentice told an Economic Club of Canada audience.

Environment Canada explained that potential qualifying projects include methane capture and destruction from landfill gas, forestation projects, agricultural soil management and wind energy projects. Generation of credits would begin with a project type-specific, quantification protocol, setting the project up for registration and implementation, emissions data monitoring, reporting, verification and certification, leading to issuance of the credits.

 ”Once an offset credit is generated . . . it can be traded on the carbon market, banked, or used for compliance purposes,” the department added. “These credits could be sold directly to companies subject to federal greenhouse gas regulations, allowing them to meet their required reductions. Other parties will be able to acquire and use these credits to voluntarily offset greenhouse gas emissions.”

The minister said later that while eligible projects must have been started up since 2005 to be eligible for inclusion, only offsets made after 2010 would be applicable to emissions targets. “What I’m describing to you today is the gold standard of offset credits.”

The domestic market is the initial focus of the proposal, but he wants to see it eventually become part of a continental approach. Having promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020, the government had already indicated a willingness to work with the United States and Mexico to develop and implement a cohesive approach by 2015.

Moreover, the plan would complement rather than supplant or duplicate regional carbon markets such as the Western Climate Initiative that includes four provinces and seven states.

Prentice had confirmed earlier that Canada’s plan to mandate caps on industrial greenhouse gases would be postponed by two years, to coincide with U.S. implementation over four years starting in 2012. The regulations originally were to have become effective next year, but Prentice said industrial competitiveness and the need to protect jobs and investments warranted a harmonized approach.

Green cake?

The way of the future lies in green cake. Sounds like a line from Dr. Seuss, but it’s how the music industry is using their position as social icons to demonstrate the need for change. And Cake, the ultra-cool band behind such hits as No Phone, Short Skirt Long Jacket, and Never There, is doing just that.

Cake uploaded video onto their fan site of the installation of a photovoltaic system on the roof of their Sacramento recording studio. The band announced  that their next album album will be recorded exclusively with solar energy.

 

This isn’t an isolated feel-good story, either. The greening of the music industry is a growing trend that advocates hope becomes the standard.  The CLIF GreenNotes program is a perfect example, not just because it grew by five artists recently, but because their program is based on supporting eco-conscious artists.  

GreenNotes helps musicians integrate environmentally friendly touring practices. GreenNotes funds artists to use biodiesel, sell organic cotton shirts, print on recycled paper and soy ink, stock backstage with locally grown organic produce, and buy renewable wind credits to offset their remaining carbon footprint.

GreenNotes has helped their musicians reduce their carbon emissions by 25 percent, eliminated the use of more than 2,900 pesticides, and offset 2.2 million pounds of carbon.

Bigger names are getting into the act, too.  The Barenaked Ladies will be using biodiesel, buying carbon offsets, recycling and ditching disposables.  In addition to spearheading the “Vote for Change Renewable Energy Project”, Pearl Jam has a Carbon Portfolio Strategy that includes using biodiesel on tour. 

If such notorious sybarites as musicians can change their tune, maybe other industries can follow their act.

Everything is coming up green

It’s fitting that a conference on a green energy source like hydropower would help to set a new “green” standard for conferences. And that’s just what the Canadian Hydropower Association achieved with its ninth annual forum held in Ottawa.

At the conference opening, Canadian Hydropower Association Chair Colin Clark pointed out that there were no paper napkins or similar disposables.

“We’re aiming to leave zero waste,” said Clark, who also is executive vice-president and chief technical officer of Toronto-based Brookfield Renewable Power. With more than 160 generating facilities in North America and Brazil, Brookfield is a key player in hydroelectric power, generating 95% of its energy from renewable source.

The CHA took its zero footprint mandate seriously. Registrants were asked upon arrival about their mode of transport. If they came by car, they were asked whether it was a shared vehicle. The CHA used the collated responses to purchase carbon credits from Planetair, a carbon offsetting company which counts federal political parties and others among its partners.

Indeed, it seems everything is coming up green these days, even energy-focused conferences.