Golden opportunity

As carbon offsetting catches on with the general public, let’s make sure people’s money goes into projects that are making real change, says Nicola Schofield of Climate Care.

Carbon offsetting is shooting up in popularity. People seem to like the idea of paying a bit extra to make amends for the damage done by their home, car, air travel or business CO2 emissions. The number of people offsetting via the CO2 calculators on Climate Care’s website has increased sixfold over the last year, and a whole new swathe of society is being exposed to the idea now that giants British Gas and British Airways have got involved.

British Gas has its own website calculator (www.house.co.uk/climate), where its customers come face to face with the real-life figures of their CO2 emissions. British Gas describes its Climate Aware initiative as “taking our customers on a journey to become more environmentally aware and use our energy products in greener way”.

As well encouraging them to take up practical energy efficiency measures, the initiative invites them to offset their emissions via Climate Care. Then there’s British Airways’ CO2 calculator (www.britishairways.com/offsetyouremissions), where customers buying a BA ticket can work out and offset the CO2 emissions through Climate Care - a first for the UK aviation industry.

Ministers returning to London from recent climate negotiations in Montreal, for example, could salve their conscience by paying an extra £7.66 on the flight. Put like this, offsets sound pretty straightforward. But are they? How can consumers be sure that their money will be used to make real greenhouse gas reductions or contribute to sustainable development?

And wouldn’t consumers be more likely to engage - thereby boosting the offsetting market - if we had a simple standard for high quality carbon offsets? After pushing for a number of years for best practice in the offsetting industry, Climate Care is pleased to see that there are two new initiatives on the horizon to clear up any doubts. First of all, non-profit organisation The Climate Group is developing a quality standard that will make sure that buyers can be sure that carbon-offset projects are making the carbon reductions they claim.

The second is a potential evolution of the prestigious ‘Gold Standard’ - the standard developed by NGOs, academics and the private sector to recognise carbon offset projects with real emissions reductions and a contribution to sustainable development. Currently, the only projects eligible to apply for the Gold Standard have been those registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the scheme set up to deliver tradable credits from overseas projects.

These credits are then bought by developed countries in order to comply with their Kyoto emission reduction targets. But Climate Care points out that a number of smaller community projects funded by companies offsetting their emissions on a voluntary basis already meet the spirit of the Standard. It is simply the high costs involved in registering for the CDM that has prevented these smaller projects, which nevertheless have strong sustainable development credentials, from obtaining this invaluable assurance mark.

At the Montreal climate change negotiations, Tom Morton, director of Climate Care, detected a change in attitude to these micro-scale projects: “There was a real sense that the voluntary market in CO2 emission reductions is on the cusp of taking off. We welcome discussions on standards for non-CDM projects. This should give buyers more confidence, and open up the market as awareness of climate change increases.”

If developed correctly, new standards could also offer other opportunities. Morton reminds us: “500 million people need access to improved cooking stoves to reach the Millennium Development Goals. Many of these people are cooking on non-renewable biomass, and yet this type of project has been virtually ruled out of the CDM, so cannot benefit from mainstream carbon finance. The voluntary market is an opportunity for carbon funds to reach areas where others can’t - to the benefit of communities and habitats around the developing world.”

Nicola Schofield is clients and projects manager at Climate Care.

6 January 2006

Nicola Schofield