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Carbon Advice Group’s primary objective is to have as great an impact as possible in tackling global climate change. Humanity’s demands exceed our planet’s capacity to sustain us. If you are an individual or a business, start by reducing your consumption and your carbon footprint today. Small steps can make a BIG difference, and Carbon Advice Group is committed to assisting you in every step of the way in achieving your low carbon goals.
Carbon Advice Group is not just about buying carbon offsets. Although we work with carbon offset originators, we also work closely with a number of global environmental charities that make a significant, positive contribution to the environment through carbon reduction or sustainability initiatives.
When you choose to balance your carbon footprint with Carbon Advice Group, you can be assured that your money will go only to independently verified, fully registered carbon offset projects or to highly respected environmental charities.
If you choose to balance your carbon footprint by donating to one of the charities listed, we guarantee that for UK taxpayers, 100% of your donation will be sent to the charity you have chosen.
Most importantly, the choice of where your money goes is always up to you.
We promise that the Carbon Offsets that you purchase through us will:
- Be independently verified by a Designated Operational Entity
- Meet internationally recognised Carbon Offset standards
- Be registered, delivered and cancelled on your behalf with an Independent Carbon Credits Registry.
When you buy Carbon Offsets from Carbon Advice Group, you can be assured that your money is invested in high quality, carbon dioxide reduction projects around the world. All of the carbon offsets that we purchase on your behalf have undergone stringent design, monitoring and verification processes so that you can be confident that the emission reductions are real and actually take place.
Our Project Quality Criteria
All of the carbon offsets we buy are accredited to internationally recognised and rigorous emission reduction standards.
Sustainable Development – helping communities better themselves in a way that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.
Welfare – carbon offset projects must result in improvements to human quality of life and lead to safer living conditions for all participants.
Environmental Security – carbon offset projects must protect the local environment of the community in which they are undertaken and ensure that both short and long term improvements are achieved.
Accountability – carbon offset projects must be monitored by independent bodies to ensure criteria are met and that target calculations are accurately reported.
Transparency – All carbon offset projects must be able to clearly demonstrate how and where all investment is utilized.
Additionality – All carbon offset projects must produce carbon reductions or removals that could not have taken place without project implementation.
Project Types
Our primary focus is on carbon offset projects that reduce direct emissions of greenhouse gases produced by industry and other human activities, for example:
Renewable Energy - Wind Power, Hydro Power, Solar power, Sustainably grown biomass, Agricultural residues (crop and animal waste)
Forestry Projects - helping to remove carbon from the atmosphere with Land Use and Tree Planting projects, such as Afforestation and Reforestation
Kyoto Protocol compliant CDM carbon offset – A CER is a carbon offset certificate which is issued every time a Kyoto Protocol member state reduces or removes one tonne of CO2 (equivalent) through carbon projects registered with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
Project Partners
Carbon Advice Group’s primary objective is to have as great an impact as possible in tackling global climate change. Humanity’s demands exceed our planet’s capacity to sustain us. If you are an individual or a business, start by reducing your consumption and your carbon footprint today. Small steps can make a BIG difference.
Carbon Advice Group is committed to assisting you in every step of the way in achieving your low carbon goals.
We promise that the carbon offsets that you purchase through us will:
- Be independently verified by a Designated Operational Entity
- Meet internationally recognised Carbon Offset standards
- Be registered, delivered and cancelled on your behalf with an Independent Carbon Credits Registry.
The international political response to climate change began with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted in 1992. Designed to raise awareness and build knowledge about the challenges and barriers faced by climate change mitigation, the UNFCCC set out a framework for action aimed at stabilising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
The Kyoto Protocol to the Convention, which was adopted in 1997 by more than 170 countries, significantly strengthened the UNFCCC by committing many industrialised countries and economies in transition, the so-called ‘Annex 1 countries’, to individual, legally-binding targets to limit or reduce their overall emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5% below the 1990 levels of emission during the period 2008-2012.
In addition to setting the first ever international target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol established, for the first time, a means for developing countries to get involved in climate change mitigation, enabling a market-based solution to an environmental problem and bringing the issue of greenhouse gases to the mainstream of clean energy planning.
The Kyoto Protocol approved the use of 3 "flexible mechanisms" for facilitating the achievement of its GHG emission reduction targets. These are:
1) Emissions Trading: allowing the international transfer of national allocations of emission rights, between different Annex 1 countries;
2) The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): a mechanism which allows for the creation of Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits through emission reduction projects in developing countries, regulated by the CDM Executive Board;
3) Joint Implementation: the creation of emissions reduction credits undertaken through transnational investment between countries and/or companies of the Annex 1 (industrialised countries).
The rationale behind these three mechanisms is that climate change is a global problem and that the location of the greenhouse gas emission reductions is irrelevant in scientific terms, and can thus be in any country.
While emission reductions generated by these three flexible mechanisms have different technical names dependant on which mechanism they arise from, they are collectively referred to as ‘carbon credits’. Carbon credits are measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) . One carbon credit represents one tonne of CO2e non-emitted or reduced. These three flexible mechanisms, along with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) put in place by the European Union in order to meet its Kyoto target, created the largest environmental market in the world for the trading of these carbon credits
What is renewable energy?
Renewable energy is the term used to describe energy flows that occur naturally and continuously in the environment, such as energy from the wind, waves or tides. The origin of the majority of these sources can be traced back to either the sun (energy from the sun helps to drive the earth’s weather patterns) or the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon. This means that these sources are essentially inexhaustible.
The key issue is how to extract this energy as effectively as possible and convert it into more useful forms of energy. This can range from directly using the energy from the sun to heat water to using mechanical devices, such as wind turbines, to convert the kinetic energy in the wind into electrical energy.
Energy underpins virtually every aspect of our economy and day-to-day lives. However, the use of fossil fuels, which currently provide the bulk of our energy, releases greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere. Due to factors such as population growth and changes in lifestyle, the demand for energy has increased to levels where the burning of fossil fuels is releasing enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to begin to directly affect our climate system.
There is now a scientific consensus that climate change is real and that it poses an immense threat to the world we live in. Impacts of climate change will make global problems such as drought, famine, flooding, disease, regional insecurity and population displacements worse, and seriously hinder poor countries’ efforts to tackle poverty.
To help lessen the effects of climate change, we must reduce the level of greenhouse gases emitted. This can be achieved by generating our energy from sources that emit low or even zero levels of greenhouse gases, such as renewable energy. We can also make sure that we use energy as efficiently as possible. However, these are not either/or options.
General pollution
As well as countering the effects of climate change, using renewable energy will also help to reduce other forms of environmental and social damage arising from the use of fossil fuels. For example, it will minimise the impact of acid rain on water and forest ecosystems, or reduce localised air pollution and its subsequent health impacts.
Deforestation and other land-use changes account for as much as 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Protecting and restoring threatened forests in biodiversity hotspots can therefore make a significant contribution to reducing global climate change as well as conserving the Earth’s biodiversity.
Forestry Projects, known as Land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) activities are aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. LULUCF projects are confined to a specific geographic location, time period, and institutional framework to allow changes in carbon stocks or greenhouse gas emissions to be monitored and verified.
There are three broad types of LULUCF projects:
| (i) | avoiding emissions via conservation of existing carbon stocks |
| (ii) | increasing carbon storage by sequestration |
| (iii) | substituting carbon for fossil fuel and energy-intensive products. Each of these types of project has a variety of subtypes. |
As the world becomes more aware of the effects of global climate change, individuals and business entities are looking for ways they can take direct action to address climate change. The forestry sector is vitally important in these efforts because forests have a tremendous capacity to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas, through the process of photosynthesis. CO2 is absorbed from the atmosphere and stored as carbon in the biomass of stems, branches, leaves, and roots. When forest managers undertake projects to store carbon beyond "business as usual," the stored carbon can be available for trade to offset CO2 emissions of other entities. This market-based mechanism can contribute to overall GHG reduction goals.
| (i) | Climate stabilization cannot be achieved this century without forests.1 |
| (ii) | Tropical deforestation is the second largest source of greenhouse emissions.2 |
| (iii) | Forestry has the greatest potential to reduce the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the next 25 years.3 |
| (iv) | Forestry in developing countries delivers the largest mitigation potential of CO2 at the lowest cost.4 |
| (v) | Forest carbon credits are the only meaningful incentive for developing countries to participate in international efforts to deal with climate change.5 |
| (vi) | Forest carbon credits are the only means by which the rural poor of the developing world can adapt to climate change.6 |
| (vii) | The poorest fifth of mankind is dependent on forests for its livelihood.7 |
| (viii) | Forests provide food and fuel, purify fresh water, reduce erosion and control desertification.8 |
| (ix) | The degradation of forested areas causes migration and communal conflict.9 |
| (x) | Half of the world’s species live in tropical forests.10 |
| (xi) | Illegal logging is stimulated by the absence of alternative value and a global shortage of sustainably managed timber.11 |
| (xii) | Over 50% of harvested wood is burned for fuel.12 |
- Stern, Nicholas, 2006, "Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change", November 2006
- Stern, Nicholas, 2006, "Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change", November 2006
Watson, Robert et al. eds." Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry. A Special Report of the IPCC",
Cambridge University Press 2000. - Vattenfall, 2007, Global Mapping of Greenhouse Gas Abatement Opportunities up to 2030 http://www.vattenfall.com
-
Davidson, Ogunllade, et. el. eds., Climate Change 2001: Mitigation, Cambridge University Press
2001, and Vattenfall, 2007, Global Mapping of Greenhouse Gas Abatement Opportunities up to 2030
http://www.vattenfall.com -
Stiglitz, Joseph, "Cleaning Up Economic Growth," Project Syndicate, 2005 and Maathai, Wangari,
"Climate Change a Pressing Issue for Africa," 13 November 2006. - Maathai, Wangari, "Climate Change a Pressing Issue for Africa," 13 November 2006.
- http://www.nature.org/rainforests/explore/facts.html
- Swingland, I, ed., Capturing Carbon and Conserving Biodiversity: The Market Approach, The Royal Society, 2002
- Watson, Robert T., et. al. eds., "The Regional Impacts of Climate Change; An Assessment of Vulnerability," Cambridge University Press 1998 and Schwartz, Peter and Doug Randall, "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security," October 2003
- Myers, N, 1988. Tropical forests and their species. In Biodiversity, E.O.Wilson ed. Washington DC: National Academy Press
- See: . "State of the World’s Forests 2005" and "Global Forest Resource Assessment 2005", FAO 2006
- Primarily as charcoal in Africa. See: UN FAO, State of the World’s Forests 2003, Rome 2003
Our energy projects aim to increase poor people’s access to energy technology options, through improving the efficiency and productivity of biomass use, and through small scale, low cost, off-grid electricity supply.
Carbon Advice Group works closely with organizations that help communities develop technology options which are appropriate to their needs.
Where biomass for cooking is the principal energy requirement, Carbon Advice Group’s partners bring technical improvements in its use; for example, by developing and commercialising low cost cooking stoves to improve upon the traditional three-stone cooking fires.
Where communities seek additional options for energy supply, Carbon Advice Group’s partners helps them to develop and promote sustainable energy technologies — sustainable, not only because they use renewable energy sources, but also because the community can participate in designing, building and maintaining the project. These options include micro-hydro plants, small scale wind generators, affordable solar lanterns, and biogas plants.
The benefits to communities can be dramatic.
Improved cooking stoves use one third of the amount of firewood as a traditional fire. They also reduce household smoke levels, with benefits to the health of women and children.
Small scale wind power generators can charge up the vehicle batteries which are used by hundreds of thousands of off-grid households to light their homes.
Micro-hydro plants can be used to mechanise crucial tasks like grain milling, and to power small businesses, as well as to bring community and household light.
On-farm biogas plants can provide 75% of household cooking needs, run lights and heat up irons – with a by-product of enriched fertiliser for farmers’ fields.
Access to these energy options brings greater income, reduced drudgery (in firewood collection and cleaning utensils, for example), better education for children who can study in a lighted home, and access to public goods like information through TV and radio, or lighting for community centres.
