Thanks to the Pacific Carbon Trust set up by the provincial government, low-carbon projects in BC are monetizing their carbon emission reductions. Selling the reductions to the Carbon Trust provides the owners of low-carbon projects in BC with an additional revenue stream to improve the return on investment and make these projects more profitable.
The Carbon Trust was established in 2008 as part of BC's Climate Action Plan. As the province's newest Crown Corporation, the Carbon Trust operates to secure emissions offsets on behalf of both the provincial public sector and any interested private sector clients. Initially, the Carbon Trust is focusing on its public sector mandate as the agency is charged with helping the provincial government become carbon neutral by 2010, in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Target Act. But the Carbon Trust is also delivering emissions offsets to private sector clients that want to mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions.
To ensure that the Carbon Trust only purchases high-quality offsets, the Ministry of Environment developed an Emission Offsets Regulation that is based on internationally recognized criteria and standards common to offset systems. The superior quality of these BC-based projects is guaranteed by requiring each offset project to be subject to independent third-party verification of its emission reductions according to the ISO 14064-3 standard. And to help ensure accountability and transparency, the Carbon Trust also tracks all retired offsets on its website.
The Carbon Trust only purchases offsets that support BC-based projects and that would not have been financially viable without the Carbon Trust's support. This requirement provides BC with a two-fold benefit: it provides British Columbians with a cleaner environment, and it ensures that the provincial economy receives substantial economic stimulus. By only procuring offsets locally, the Carbon Trust is encouraging innovation in the province's clean tech sector and fostering the growth of a BC-based offset industry. Currently, the Carbon Trust charges a transaction charge of $25 per tonne offset and the collected funds are used to finance local projects that use new processes and technologies to address climate change. At this price, the Carbon Trust will quickly provide the province with substantial economic stimulus.
The Carbon Trust's first delivery of 34,370 tonnes of offsets was only directed at offsetting the emissions related to government business travel. But by 2010, all government-related emissions will require offsetting, expanding the scope of the Carbon Trust's client base to include school districts, colleges, universities, health authorities, other Crown corporations and other government agencies. Because of this expanded scope, the Carbon Trust expects that it will be delivering between 700,000 and 1,000,000 tonnes of offsets annually by 2011. At $25 per tonne offset, BC's clean tech sector stands to receive a considerable financial boost.
So far, the Carbon Trust has agreed to acquire offsets from 15 facilities in BC. This includes 330,000 tonnes of offsets over five years from Offsetters Clean Technology Inc., a BC-based private offset business. To put this in perspective, 330,000 tonnes of offsets is equivalent to taking 85,800 cars off the road for a year. Offsetters will use the funds from the Carbon Trust to facilitate technology upgrades to four local greenhouses and a cement plant that will substantially cut the carbon emissions from all of them.
McCarthy Tétrault Notes:
In the near future, expect the Carbon Trust to offer offsets directly to businesses or individuals who are interested in offsetting their emissions-producing activities. Although no specific details are available yet, the Carbon Trust expects to provide the private sector with a variety of easy-to-use ways to purchase high quality BC-based offsets. But currently, the Carbon Trust requires interested businesses or individuals to contact the Carbon Trust directly for more information.
Private sector companies that are interested in supplying offsets to the Carbon Trust should get involved with the Carbon Trust's procurement process. The Carbon Trust issues procurement calls through its own website and on BC Bid. Clean tech companies are advised to monitor these procurement calls closely, as support from the Carbon Trust may rapidly take an emissions-reducing project from drawing board to reality.
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