Voluntary carbon markets

Voluntary carbon market

As the voluntary market develops, various certification frameworks and verification agencies are emerging with the purpose of assisting the buyer to be sure that a carbon offset available in the market is actually legitimate. Among other things, the verifiers have to ensure that the offset results from a specific project that would not have happened without offset investment, that the calculations around how many offsets are being created are sound, that the offsets are not being sold more than once, that the offsetting is taking place within a reasonable time of the purchase of the offset (ideally in the same year and not many years later, in which case no real difference will have been made), and that the offset project is not associated with other undesirable impacts, for example a reforestation project that results in displacing people from their land.

For an excellent review of the pros and cons of the voluntary offset market see a recent article in New Scientist, 10 March 2007, 'Look, no footprint'.

The New Zealand government has recently announced that all 34 core public service departments will begin immediate work to achieve carbon neutrality. The aim is for all of them to “be on the path to carbon neutrality” by 2012. Agencies are expected to reduce their emissions as much as much as possible first before offsetting the remainder. More information>>

Personal carbon offsets
You don’t need to be a big company or a government department to become part of the voluntary market. It is now quite possible for individuals and households to offset their emissions and become carbon neutral.

There are a variety of online calculators allowing you to calculate how much CO2 you are responsible for. Most of these calculators estimate your so-called primary footprint based on household fuel bills and travel, but don’t include other CO2 sources such as food production and transport, household construction and maintenance, the CO2 produced in manufacturing and transporting your car, clothes and appliances, etc. If the calculator tries to capture all of these sources its more akin to an ecological footprint calculator.

Carbon footprint calculators are country and even regionally specific because the emissions associated with electricity generation vary greatly – some countries and regions will have more renewable generation than others, and some people will have access to green electricity while others won’t.

The primary CO2 emissions from a typical household in New Zealand are in the order of 7 or 8 tonnes. The calculators (see links on the right of this page) provide advice on how you can take action to reduce your emissions. You can also purchase offsets online. These offsets are sourced from the voluntary market. In the case of Landcare’s calculator, the offsets are sourced from New Zealand based forest regeneration projects.

Offsetting Consumer Products
Some companies are now exploring ways in which their products can achieve the status of carbon neutral. One of the first in New Zealand is The New Zealand Wine Company (NZWC), a wine producer in Marlborough. They have released the world’s first carbon neutral wine product. They did this by identifying and measuring all of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of their wines, developing ways to reduce their emissions, and finally offsetting the remaining unavoidable emissions through the regeneration of native forests. The process was developed by Landcare Research New Zealand and is independently audited to ensure its integrity.