As the global trend in managing environmental assets moves towards price based mechanisms, a robust global registry is an essential tool in order to provide the required transparency and credibility – CLEVEL is now working with the MARKIT registry as well as pioneering Community Carbon verifiers Plan Vivo…
Carbon Compensation Projects
Carbon offset projects are an important part of our global efforts to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere. At CLEVEL we use the term compensation. They are built into international agreements, notably the Kyoto Protocol, through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This enables project developers to create carbon credits called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) in countries outside of the Kyoto Protocol. These credits can be purchased to compensate for the footprint of organisations operating within countries signed up to the protocol. In this compliance market the carbon credits are often from carbon reductions associated with changes in infrastructure and industry. Projects are rarely owned or of benefit to communities.
CLEVEL develops projects and works closely with other project developers to create a different quality of carbon credit, usually called a Verified Emission Reduction or VER. CLEVEL credits are voluntary credits, purchased to compensate for the carbon emissions of organisations who are interested in being carbon balanced (carbon neutral). All CLEVEL credits also deliver additional ecological and social benefits to the communities where the projects are based.
We call these community carbon projects, and only offer these kind of projects as part of our carbon balanced standard. We currently include both cook stoves and reforestation in our portfolio. These are run with international ngo partners who operate primarily to benefit local communities. Benefits include enhanced livelyhood, improved health and enhanced ecosystems. We also take care to ensure that projects are developed as a result of our involvement and are therefore ‘additional’:
Plan Vivo is a framework for projects developing local livelihoods and conserving and restoring local ecosystems
CLEVEL completes SEE
appraisal and becomes founder member of comprehensive new business disclosure label
