Carbon Offset Opportunities for BC Agriculture

Transcription

1 Offsetters Clean Technology Carbon Offset Opportunities for BC Agriculture Phil Cull Director, Sourcing Agri-Energy Forum Abbotsford 27 th January 2012

2 About Offsetters Founded in 2005 by Professor James Tansey, Sauder School of Business, UBC Canada s first and largest carbon management team First supplier of carbon credits for the Pacific Carbon Trust initiative to make BC government carbon neutral for 2010 First ever Official Supplier of Carbon Offsets to IOC with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games First Canadian company to co-develop Gold Standard Cookstove project in Africa

3 About Offsetters We help organizations and individuals understand, reduce and offset their GHG emissions Understand Reduce Offset We develop and invest in high-quality offset projects that promote the adoption of clean technology and low carbon fuels We partner with organizations to create unique programs that enhance their brand and make a real difference

4 What is an Offset? A carbon offset is an investment in a project with a real and measurable emissions reduction. Each offset = 1 tonne CO 2 e High quality offsets are: Real - Projects takes place as promised Additional - Your investment enables projects that would otherwise not take place Permanent - Emissions reductions are not temporary Socially beneficial - Projects generate social and environmental benefits Standards include: Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard, BC Emissions Offset Regulation

5 Offset quality assurance Validation and Verification Standards Additionality CDM additionality tool for Gold Standard, ISO and BC Emission Offsets Regulation credits VCS protocols with strict additionality criteria Transparency APX Markit Blue Registry

6 Portfolios and projects Our high quality offsets are real, additional, permanent and have high social benefits. Developed in-house Co-developed Procured from trusted partners

7 Offsetters and Agriculture The first company to develop agricultural offsets in BC Currently working on a large scale agricultural waste fiber utilization project We have worked extensively with the greenhouse industry leading to over 100kt of offsets developed and sold

8 Challenges with BC Agriculture Projects? BC agriculture tends to have a large number of smaller-scale operations. Carbon offset projects are often not cost effective for small-scale projects i.e., transaction costs too high. No real mechanism to facilitate small-scale carbon offset development.

9 SunSelect Greenhouse, BC PROFILE: Sun Select Produce Greenhouse LOCATION: Aldergrove, British Columbia TYPE: CREDITS: Fuel Switching / Energy Efficiency 7,500 tco2e / per year STANDARD: BC Government Emission Offsets Regulations (BC EOR) Status quo: Natural gas boiler with significant energy losses Innovation: Natural Gas switch to Biomass (wood waste) boilers + Heat trapping curtains installed to reduce heated area Result: Model for new energy innovation Decreased fuel intensity, carbon reductions; Increased food security

10 BC Project Profile Sun Select Delta

11 BC Project Profile Sun Select Delta 60,000 Utilization of Natural Gas (GJ) 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 - Model - Baseline (GJ): Model - Forecast (GJ): Actual Consumption (GJ):

12 The market for offsets Pacific Carbon Trust Western Climate Initiative BC Cap and Trade The Voluntary Market

13 New Opportunities for Agriculture? Carbon finance for Anaerobic Digesters Land use management changes No or reduced till agriculture Fertilizer regime changes Rice cultivation changes Programmatic approach

14 Programmatic Offsets: A New Opportunity for Agriculture Programmatic offsets provide a new mechanism to aggregate smaller projects New projects may join a program after the program has started Enables projects that were too small previously to take advantage of carbon funding

15 Our Programmatic Experience Offsetters developed the first programmatic protocol and project in BC (COAC) Co-authored BC-guidance document on programmatic offsets Have extensive in-house database management capabilities

16 In summary Agriculture is increasingly seen as an important area for GHG reductions Anywhere a change of behavior leads to a reduction in GHG emissions could result in an offset project - $$$s in potential funding BC is among the few jurisdictions in the world where there is potential to access a meaningful sale price for reductions BUT there are significant challenges to generating offsets in BC

17 Thank you! We welcome the opportunity to build a partnership with you. Phil Cull Director, Sourcing Phil@offsetters.ca Andrew Leitch Project Manager andrew@offsetters.ca