London, 18 January: The UK government is to develop a standard
for voluntary carbon offsetting, which will be based on
credits from markets created by the Kyoto Protocol.
But some offset providers are
incensed that the government has ignored verified emission
reductions (VERs) generated by non-Kyoto projects and have
criticised the inclusion of allowances (EUAs) from the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in the plans.
The government launched a
consultation today on the standard and an associated code of
practice, proposing that offset providers supply consumers
with clear information and transparent prices.
Environment secretary David Miliband
said: "People need to be sure that the way they offset is
actually making a difference. The government's standard and
code of practice, with a quality mark so people can check
easily before they choose an offsetting product, will help to
provide that certainty."
The government's standard would be
based on credits from sources regulated by Kyoto bodies, such
as Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) generated by Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, and Emission Reduction
Units from Joint Implementation (JI) projects, as well as EUAs.
Jonathan Shopley, chief executive of
the CarbonNeutral Company, a UK-based offset provider,
welcomed government support for voluntary standards, but said
it was "missing a trick" by excluding verified emission
reductions (VERs) that are not governed by the Kyoto
mechanisms.
"CERs are often focused on large
industrial-scale emission reduction projects… Voluntary
schemes [generating VERs] which are more local- and
community-based often have more relevance and consumers can
more easily see the benefits," he said.
Mark Kenber, policy director at NGO
The Climate Group, said the proposal "does provide some
guarantee of quality, but only by artificially restricting the
market. It doesn't seem to make an awful lot of sense – there
are lot of good [carbon abatement] projects that don't want to
go through CDM accreditation".
Both were surprised that EUAs were
included in the government plans as a possible source of
carbon offsets. The vast majority of allowances are given away
free to companies in the EU ETS and are essentially a
permission to pollute, not an emission reduction.
"This is an attempt by the
government to tighten up the very lax markets in the EU ETS,"
said Shopley, referring to the oversupply of allowances in the
first phase of the EU scheme.
Other standards for offsets have
already been launched in the market, such as the Gold Standard
and the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the latter being developed
by The Climate Group and the International Emissions Trading
Association.
A recent
report by the Carbon Trust, an independent company funded
by the UK government, noted five standards that met its
minimum level of quality. These included CDM/JI, the Gold
Standard and the Voluntary Carbon Standard.
Details of the consultation are
posted on the Defra
website. The closing date for responses is 13 April 2007.
According to a recent
MIT survey, Americans
now rank climate change as the country’s most pressing
environmental problem—a dramatic shift from three years ago,
when they ranked climate change sixth out of 10 environmental
concerns.
Almost three-quarters of the respondents felt the government
should do more to deal with global warming, and individuals
were willing to spend their own money to help.
“While terrorism and the war in Iraq are the main issues of
national concern, there’s been a remarkable increase in the
American public’s recognition of global warming and their
willingness to do something about it,” said Stephen
Ansolabehere, MIT’s Elting R. Morison Professor of Political
Science.
The survey results were released Oct. 31 at the seventh annual
Carbon Sequestration Forum, an international meeting held at
MIT that focuses on methods of capturing and storing emissions
of carbon dioxide—a major contributor to climate change.
Ansolabehere’s colleagues on the work are Howard Herzog,
principal research engineer in MIT’s Laboratory for Energy and
the Environment (LFEE), LFEE research associates Thomas E.
Curry and Mark de Figueiredo, and Professor David M. Reiner of
the University of Cambridge.
The findings are a result of two surveys, the first
administered in September 2003 and the follow-up in September
2006. Each survey included about 20 questions focusing on the
environment, global warming, and a variety of
climate-change-mitigation technologies.
In designing and administering the surveys, the research team
collaborated with Knowledge Networks, a company that
specializes in Internet-based public opinion surveys. More
than 1,200 people answered each survey (with no overlap
between the two groups of respondents).
Comparing results from the two surveys provides insights into
how public awareness, concern, and understanding have
changed—or not changed—during the past three years.
The environment continues to rank in the middle of the list of
“most important issues facing the U.S. today.” However, among
10 environmental problems, global warming (or climate change)
now tops the list: Almost half the respondents put global
warming in first or second place. In 2003, the destruction of
ecosystems, water pollution, and toxic waste were far higher
priorities.
There is also an increased sense that global warming is an
established problem. In the 2006 survey, 28 percent of the
respondents agreed that it is a serious problem and immediate
action is necessary—up from 17 percent in 2003. All together,
almost 60 percent of the 2006 respondents agreed that there’s
enough evidence to warrant some level of action.
The other big change is a substantial increase in people’s
willingness to spend their own money to do something about it.
In 2003, people were willing to pay on average $14 more per
month on their electricity bill to “solve” global warming. In
2006 they agreed to pay $21 more per month—a 50 percent
increase in their willingness to pay.
Could $21 make a real difference? Assuming 100 million U.S.
households, total payments would be $25 billion per year.
"That's real money," said Herzog. "While it cannot solve the
whole problem, it can certainly make significant strides."
For context, Ansolabehere pointed out that the U.S. Department
of Energy’s budget for energy R&D is now about $2 billion per
year. “Another reading of this outcome is that people want not
a little bit more spent but rather a lot more spent to solve
this problem—and they’re willing to pay,” he said.
The MIT team undertook the original survey in 2003 to find out
what the public thought about carbon capture and storage (CCS),
an approach that Herzog and his LFEE colleagues had been
studying for more than a decade. The team was not surprised to
find that more than 90 percent of the respondents had never
heard of CCS.
The 2006 survey showed similar results.
In general, the respondents’ understanding of climate change
and possible mitigation technologies showed little change
between 2003 and 2006. In terms of their technology
preferences, in 2006 most still recommended using more wind
and solar energy and increasing efficiency, but more were
willing to consider CCS and nuclear energy as possible
approaches.
“It’s not that people have learned something fundamental about
the science, but they’ve come to understand that this problem
is real,” said Ansolabehere. “It takes a prolonged discussion
of a complex topic like this really to move public concern,
and what’s happened over the past three years has got to
continue.”
The researchers plan to analyze the survey results in more
depth, in particular to test for correlations between answers
to questions and the economic, political, geographical, and
other demographic characteristics of the respondents.
Washington,
26 October 2006 – Major U.S. corporations are moving
aggressively to address climate change and other environmental
concerns through entrepreneurial, technology-driven solutions,
experts say.
“Almost every day we have major businesses making statements
about voluntary commitments to reduce greenhouse gas [GHG]
emissions,” Andrew Shapiro, the founder and head of Green
Order, said in an October 13 interview. “U.S. companies have
seen value and are investing in [better] energy and
environmental performance.”
Green Order is a consulting firm that helps companies run
their operations in an environmentally friendly manner.
Corporations act to reduce their energy use, harmful emissions
and waste because they expect savings from increased energy
and operational efficiencies. Companies also believe that
their environmental initiatives will enhance their reputation
with investors, customers, regulators and communities
concerned about GHG emissions, according to an October 2006
report by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
GHG emissions, primarily of carbon dioxide and methane,
contribute to global warming. Some scientists believe that the
warming could get worse, making the climate less human
friendly, if emissions are not stabilized.
Experts agree that improving energy efficiency can have the
most direct impact on a company’s profitability and on its
“environmental footprint.” For example, since 1990 chemical
conglomerate DuPont has saved $3 billion and cut GHG emissions
by more than 70 percent. Advanced companies such as DuPont
and American Electric Power can leverage their environmental
experience into process improvements to increase productivity
and reduce emissions without impeding their growth plans.
A good environmental reputation also has proved to create
tangible benefits for companies. For example, aluminum-maker
Alcoa was invited by Iceland’s government to locate its plant
in that country based on company’s environmentally friendly
image. At Whirlpool such an image gives a competitive edge to
company’s energy efficient home appliances.
In addition, companies with sound environmental strategies and
practices are likely or highly likely to see improved
financial performance, according to 2003/2004 studies, one by
researchers from Sydney University and the University of Iowa,
and another by the United Kingdom Environment Agency.
RIPPLE EFFECT
Some multinational companies based in the United States, such
as Alcoa, DuPont and floor-maker Interface Flooring Systems,
recognized the value of more environmentally sustainable
strategies in the early 1990s. These firms are now regarded
widely as the most environmentally responsible corporations in
the world.
Other U.S. companies started recognizing energy-related and
other environmental issues as relevant to their operations
only recently as a result of dramatic shifts in the
marketplace and in the international and national political
arenas – rising energy prices, growing concern about global
climate change and pressure from governments, investors,
consumers, environmental groups and the media.
Shapiro said there has been a “sea-change” in the past two
years in how U.S. companies think about the environment.
In 2003, major U.S. corporations largely were ignoring these
issues, according to a report by Ceres, a nongovernmental
organization working to address environmental challenges.
Since then, however, major corporations in many key industries
have begun implementing environmentally friendly initiatives,
Ceres said in a March 2006 report.
The watershed year was 2005 when Wal-Mart embraced energy
efficiency and environmental stewardship and announced
ambitious environmental goals, says Peter Clarke, a senior
associate at First Environmental, an environmental management
consulting firm.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, vowed to buy 100
percent of its electricity from renewable resources, produce
no waste, double the fuel efficiency of its trucks and reduce
GHG emissions by 20 percent. It also said it expected its
60,000 suppliers worldwide to follow its lead if they wanted
to continue doing business with Wal-Mart.
Because of the retailer’s global reach, “this will have a
ripple effect across the planet,” Clarke said in an October 20
interview. “Never before there’s been a company with this much
clout that has gone to its suppliers and demanded that they
improve their environmental performance.”
FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT
The prospects for broader implementation by U.S. businesses of
environmentally friendly strategies will reflect, in part, the
pace of regulatory reforms and trends in energy costs.
According to the Pew Center’s report, some U.S. corporations
are reluctant to pursue more ambitious carbon-reducing
initiatives because of continued uncertainty about the impact
of global warming and related regulatory policies.
The United States currently relies on voluntary reductions in
GHG emissions in the private sector. Several state
governments, however, have moved to place mandatory caps on
these emissions, and nearly all of the 31 major corporations
surveyed by the Pew Center view some kind of federal GHG
standards as inevitable.
Many want to prepare for those standards to be in the best
position to manage a related carbon-pricing scheme. But others
prefer to wait with major environmental investment for clear
regulatory and market signal.
“The only thing that business likes even less than regulation
is uncertainty,” Shapiro said.
A ranking of the world’s top 100 most sustainable corporations
done by Corporate Knights, a Canadian environmental
magazine, and Innovest Strategic Value Advisors Inc., a
British research company, includes 17 U.S. corporations, as
opposed to nearly 70 European companies on the list.
The ranking defines as “sustainable” those companies that
“have displayed a better ability than most of their industry
peers to identify and effectively manage material
environmental, social and governance factors.”
However, U.S. companies are catching up with leading European
rivals thanks to a more entrepreneurial, market-driven and
technology-focused approach, Shapiro said.
Alcoa developed lighter, longer-lasting commercial truck
wheels, betting on automakers’ intent to build lighter,
fuel-efficient vehicles. And United Technologies Corporation
came out with a unique technology designed to reduce
significantly emissions from coal-fired power plants, hoping
to capture a large portion of the market for clean
electricity.
According to experts, United Technologies’ chief operating
officer, George David, expressed beliefs of many U.S.
executives when he said that the “best sustainability efforts,
like everything else in human endeavor, are those coming from
marketplace not mandates.”
The
Pew Center’s report on
climate change related corporate strategies can be viewed on
the center’s Web site and
Ceres’ report on climate
change related corporate governance can be viewed on the
Ceres’ Web site.
The U.S. government supports corporate environmental efforts
through voluntary programs that include:
•
Building Technologies Program,
which works with the building industry and manufacturers to
promote energy efficiency;
•
Climate Leaders, designed
to develop long-term comprehensive climate change strategies;
•
Energy Star, which offers
technical assistance on proven energy efficiency strategies;
•
Green Suppliers Network,
which aims to leverage purchasing power of large manufacturers
to lessen environmental impacts of their suppliers;
•
Industrial Technologies Program,
which promotes technologies intended to help industries
improve their energy efficiency and environmental performance;
•
Save Energy Now, which
helps industrial plants identify ways to reduce energy use in
key industrial process systems;
