Offset Guide Illuminates Need for Consumer Education and Standards

Purchasing Carbon Offsets: A Guide for Canadian Consumers, Business, and Organizations was released this week. The Guide was prepared by the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) and the Pembina Institute to “help consumers, businesses and organizations assess the quality of carbon offsets and the reliability of the vendors that sell them”. The findings were based on surveys of 14 Canadian offset vendors as well as six international vendors. It is recommended reading for those interested in both the voluntary carbon market and offset systems generally.

The Guide applied the following criteria to assign the vendors a total percentage based score:

1) Additionality;

2) Auditing;

3) Permanence; and

4) Unique ownership.

Those scoring above 80% were considered to have strong performance, those scoring between 50 and 79% were considered to have average performance and those scoring under 50% were considered to have weak performance. Of the 20 vendors surveyed six had strong performances, eight had average performances and six had weak performances. The six vendors with strong performances were:

• Less – www.less.ca (Canada)
• Climate Friendly – www.climatefriendly.com (Australia)
• Atmosfair – www.atmosfair.de (Germany)
• Planetair – www.planetair.ca (Canada)
• CarbonZero – www.carbonzero.ca (Canada)
• LivClean – www.livclean.ca (Canada)

The guide is careful to suggest that it cannot be relied on exclusively to assess the quality of offsets sold by these vendors. It is a valuable starting point; however, consumer diligence is required to identify vendors with high quality offsets. This is largely due to the lack of a regulatory system or dominant Canadian-applicable standard.

With the recent announcement that the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) can now be applied to qualifying Canadian projects, without the cancellation of Kyoto emission allowances, we may see movement towards standardization of offset projects at home. Voluntary Carbon Units (or VCUs) were unavailable to Canadian based projects over fears of double counting vis-à-vis Canada’s Kyoto Protocol reduction commitment. The July 23, 2009 VCS press release states:

The VCS Board concluded that [the requirement to demonstrate units will not be double counted] is not applicable to Canada because there is no regulatory framework to implement the Kyoto Protocol, none is likely to emerge, and the country is unlikely to achieve its Kyoto Protocol reduction commitment.

That statement, although painful to read, is absolutely accurate.

Until we have a clear regulatory framework it will be up to the voluntary market, and private offset developers to set standards of offset credits. Consumers will need to educate themselves. Although it should be noted that some do not agree with the assumptions and criteria used in the DSF/Pembina Guide, it should aid in that endeavor.