10 Mar
2008 - The Gold Standard for carbon offsets
has come out on top after research which,
for the first time, rates voluntary offset
standards according to clear quality criteria.
The report, which rates
the seven main standards, was commissioned
by conservation organization WWF. Making
Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market – a
Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards, was
written by the Stockholm Environment Institute,
an independent research organization, and
Tricorona, a major investor in and originator
of carbon offsets.
The high-profile voluntary
market for carbon offsets is small but fast
growing. WWF believes voluntary standards
could play a role in the fight against dangerous
climate change by getting consumers and
companies used to the idea of paying to
offset the environmental damage caused by
their carbon emissions. High-quality offset
schemes make investments in clean energy
or efficient production while contributing
to the sustainable development of the countries
in which they are hosted.
Much of the recent growth
in the voluntary market comes from companies
and individuals who wish to offset their
carbon emissions (created by travel or production
processes, for instance) by purchasing credits
in projects that result in emissions reductions
elsewhere.
While WWF welcomes the
increased public awareness of the need to
cut carbon pollution, it urges consumers
and business leaders to use offsetting only
as the final part of a three-pronged approach
known as “avoid, reduce, then offset”. Only
when all options to avoid or reduce greenhouse
gas emissions have been exhausted (these
include e.g. buying green electricity, using
public transport, or using video-conferencing
instead of flying to meetings) should they
proceed to offsetting by using Gold Standard
credits, now rated as the highest quality
standard.
“WWF believes that people
should be able to trust that the carbon
offsets they are purchasing come from high-quality
projects that are actually helping to minimize
climate change,” said Hans Verolme, director
of WWF’s Global Climate Change Programme.
“If carbon offsets are
to be credible, and if businesses want to
avoid being accused of ‘greenwashing,’ the
projects they finance must have clear social
and environmental benefits. Otherwise, offsetting
will be seen as the rich transferring responsibility
for tackling climate change to the developing
world ,” he said.
The voluntary standards
rated in the report are: Gold Standard;
Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS); VER+; Chicago
Climate Exchange (CCX); Voluntary Offset
Standard (VOS); Climate, Community and Biodiversity
Standards (CCBS); Plan Vivo.
The Gold Standard is
an independent, internationally recognized
benchmark for carbon offset projects. It
was created by environmental and development
NGOs, including WWF, and is currently supported
by 51 NGOs from around the world.
Editors’ notes
The authors of the report are: Anja Kollmus,
from the Stockholm Environment Institute’s
US Centre; Helge Zink, from the Swedish
Tricorona group, a major investor in carbon
emissions reduction projects; and Clifford
Polycarp, a research intern at the Stockholm
Environment Institute.
A PDF of the report
and a WWF paper with guidelines for robust
offset standards can be found at: https://intranet.panda.org/documents/document.cfm?uFolderID=61441&uDocID=117921
The user name is intranet@wwfint.org and
the password is dropbox.
Moira O’Brien-Malone, Head of Media Relations,
WWF International, Gland, Switzerland.
About WWF
WWF, the global conservation organization,
is one of the world's largest and most respected
independent conservation organizations.
WWF has a global network active in over
100 countries with almost 5 million supporters.
WWF's mission is to
stop the degradation of the earth's natural
environment and to build a future in which
humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving
the world's biological diversity, ensuring
that the use of renewable natural resources
is sustainable, and promoting the reduction
of pollution and wasteful consumption.
