Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Carbon Trust Standard


I am writing further to Murray's email below, in relation to gathering information for the proposed Carbon Trust global partnership. Firstly, if you can provide the information referred to below, that would be extremely useful for us in assessing India's suitability to take part in this programme.

Secondly, India would potentially be a Phase 1 country in this partnership, hence if you could provide as much of the following information as possible, that would be excellent.

The questions we need to answer for each of our selected regions are as follows:

    1) What are the top ten Key Accounts for Bureau Veritas (India), both for BV Certification and for BV I&F as a whole? 2) Do you consider there to be a market in India for either (i) the Carbon Trust Standard, or (ii) the Carbon Trust carbon footprint product? Please briefly review overview of these two products at: 3) Could you estimate the typical value to Bureau Veritas (India) of selling these two products to any one client? - Could you estimate the overall market size in terms of number of companies that could be potentially interested? - Could you estimate number of current BV clients that could be interested (provide some examples, name, size of business today with BV)  4) Could you estimate what your market share of each of these products might be in India? 5) Do carbon-related products already form part of the local Bureau Veritas business plan? 6) Daily rate used in your country for this type of product 7) Are there any other certification bodies competing in this market and offering carbon related services? Who is the largest competitor in this market? 8) How many auditors do you have that are trained or could be trained to deliver these services? 9) How many auditors (trained or not yet trained) could start delivering these services before the end of 2010?
Please do contact me if you require clarification, otherwise, the sooner you can provide this information the better (this week if at all possible). Many thanks in advance, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Joe

Joseph Bull
Consultant
Sustainability and Carbon Group
Bureau Veritas Solutions


Bureau Veritas is in discussions with the Carbon Trust to enter into global partnership to sell and deliver its carbon footprinting, labelling and carbon certification product/schemes. We are already working with the CT in the UK (as QA partner for its certification scheme) and with this opportunity we anticipate certification and consulting opportunities. There are obvious synergies in key markets due to the CT’s increasingly high global profile, and the fact that it can compliment our own offer (there may be exceptions to this in places).

In practice BV will:




    - Receive internal training for auditors/consultants - Carry out marketing and promotion of the CT portfolio - Carry out sales and delivery

A Pilot phase (2-3 markets) is to begin in Q1 2011 (US, China, other), and thereafter a further ~20 markets have been identified by the CT as very good prospects; these would then be phased in over as short a timescale as possible (this may necessitate passage through the I&F Engagements Committee).

I estimate set-up coordination time in each market to be in the region of 4-5 man days per month for up to 6 month or until first sales; this set-up duration will depend on the urgency and the effectiveness with which it is done - we should bear in mind that the CT is in a big hurry to get this to a point of delivery and so all efforts would be made from both sides to reduce set-up time to a minimum. There will also be training time and possibly some financial investment (eg for hosting events). Thereafter sales should combine with existing BV carbon/GHG business development activity, and to the same client base plus new clients wherever possible.

For your information the CT foresees revenues from the sales of its licensed products "reaching a run rate of at least £25 million per annum after 3 years", the proportion of which would be negotiated to reflect value to both parties.

Immediate Next Steps
We need to identify which BV countries that are well placed to participate in such a partnership. The intention is to offer the market place a definitive service that is compatible with ISO standards and existing carbon accounting guidance, leading to the growth of BV's carbon market share.

More detail will follow on both the footprinting/labelling and the certification schemes as well as the contractual conditions that will be discussed and agreed. For now please let me know if you have any questions/initial comments and please can you answer the 9 brief questions on the attached by return (for a next CT meeting on 2 August). 

[attachment "BV Market survey_0710.xls.zip" deleted by Murray Sayce/GBR/VERITAS]
Please pass this onto your relevant key colleagues as appropriate. Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you later this week.

For more information on the CT’s portfolio in question, see:
http://www.carbon-label.com/business/about.htm 
http://www.carbon-label.com/business/forbusinesses.htm 

best regards
Murray Sayce
Technical Director
Sustainability Services


....

About the Carbon Trust Footprinting Company

The Carbon Label Company was set up by the Carbon Trust in 2007 to help meet the needs of both businesses and their customers. In 2009, the Company became the Carbon Trust Footprinting Company to reflect the breadth of services it now provides to meet:
  • Business Needs - to measure, reduce and communicate the lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their products and services, including food and drink.
  • Consumer Needs - to help people make choices that would lower their own carbon footprints, and to educate them on how the way they use the products they buy can lower their carbon footprints.
The products the Carbon Trust Footprinting Company provide include consultancy, scoping of projects, and communication via the Carbon Reduction Label.
It also markets Footprint Expert - a product carbon footprinting toolset to help companies produce cost-effective reliable measurements of GHG emissions in their products and services. More information on Footprint Expert can be found at our companion website www.footprintexpert.com
The Carbon Trust Footprinting Certification Company was established in 2009 to provide independent and impartial certification services for product carbon footprints.
This complements the Carbon Trust's work of helping businesses to certify and communicate their corporate carbon footprints.

Creating a standard for comparability


The Carbon Trust, along with Defra, instigated BSI British Standards' development of a Publicly Available specification (the PAS 2050) for assessing GHG emissions of products and services. Developed in parallel, the Code of Good Practice on GHG emissions and reductions claims (the Code), is a guide to making claims about GHG emissions.
When working with businesses, the Carbon Trust Footprinting Company applies its own set of proprietary data to the PAS 2050 and the Code to ensure standardisation of measurements within product and service categories. It is this process that allows customers to easily compare the GHG footprints of different products, whatever their origins.


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Saturday, April 3, 2010

GREENFIELD

Additionality

The concept of additionality addresses the question of whether the carbon project would have happened anyway, even in the absence of revenue from carbon credits. Only projects that are additional to the business-as-usual scenario are eligible to gain compensations from carbon revenue. Both mandatory and voluntary carbon schemes may require the demonstration of additionality.

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Baseline

The baseline of the project is a hypothetical scenario that presents the emissions that would have occurred without the project. Thus, the amount of emission reduction depends on the baseline emissions minus the emissions of the project. The baseline may be estimated through reference to emissions from similar activities and technologies in the same country or other countries, or to actual emissions prior to project implementation.

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Carbon Market / Emission Trading

Carbon market cab be simply classified as mandatory trading market of carbon dioxide emissions and voluntary carbon offset market. It is a part of emission trading, also known as cap and trade, that is used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. In the carbon market, the pollutants are greenhouse gases. Greenfield have experiences and/or know-how in the below carbon schemes:

  • Kyoto protocol, especially in clean development mechanism (CDM)
  • NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (Australia)
  • Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS, proposed)
  • European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS)
  • New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS, proposed)
  • Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, USA)

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Clean Development Mechanism / CDM

Clean Development Mechanism is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialized countries (also known as Annex I countries) with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment to invest in emission reduction projects implemented in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries.

CDM is supervised by the CDM Executive Board (CDM EB) and is under the guidance of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Meeting of Parties (MOP) of Kyoto Protocol.

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Gold Standard

The Gold Standard is the independent standard for emission reduction projects in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Joint Implementation (JI) and Voluntary Carbon Market. One of the purpose of the Standard is to increase the quality of carbon projects. It was designed to ensure that carbon credits are not only real and verifiable but that they make measurable contributions to sustainable development globally.

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Greenhouse gas accounting

Greenhouse gas accounting is the way to inventory emissions and removals of greenhouse gases. There are several guidances for accounting for GHG emissions from organizations and emission reduction projects. Meanwhile, Intergovernmentalon Panel Climate Change (IPCC) provides the guidance for national GHG inventories.

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Greenhouse gas inventory / GHG Inventory

Greenhouse gas inventory is a type of emission inventory that is an accounting of the amount of pollutants discharged into the atmosphere. Usually, business uses inventories to better understand the sources and trends in emissions. Unlike other inventories, GHG inventories include not only emissions from source categories, but removals as well. GHG inventories may support the business to identify emission reduction potentials and opportunities.

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Greenhouse Gas Protocol / GHG Protocol

The GHG Protocol is developed by World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It is an internationally accepted greenhouse gas accounting and reporting standard for business. There are two separate but linked standards:

  • GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard
  • GHG Protocol Project Quantification Standard

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ISO 14064

ISO 14064 standards was published in 2006 and early 2007 by International Organization for Standardization, as the additions to the ISO 14000 series standards for environmental management. The ISO 14064 standards provide an integrated set of tools for organizations aimed at measuring, quantifying and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The standards allow organizations participate in emission trading schemes according to a globally recognized standard.

  • ISO 14064-1:2006 Greenhouse gases -- Part 1: Specification with guidance at the organization level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals
  • ISO 14064-2:2006 Greenhouse gases -- Part 2: Specification with guidance at the project level for quantification, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emission reductions or removal enhancements
  • ISO 14064-3:2006 Greenhouse gases -- Part 3: Specification with guidance for the validation and verification of greenhouse gas assertions

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Panda Standard

The Panda Standard is the first voluntary standard developed for the Chinese market for both corporate and consumer demand to act upon the climate change. There are seven core principles at the heart of the Standard according to its website: real, additional, measurable -reportable-verifiable, unique, permanent, demonstrate ancillary benefits, and unambiguously owned.

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Voluntary Carbon Standard

The Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) is a quality standard for voluntary carbon offset industry. Refering to Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, VCS establishes criteria for validating, measuring, and monitoring carbon offset projects.

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