carbon footprint and buying credits

[CR0X]

does anyone have any experience in calculating a footprint and buying and selling credits.

One of our clients is very environmentally concious and would like to buy some carbon credits of part of our investment portfolio (a 227 acre farm with 150K trees), but no way of knowing what to ask, and what we have to do to be part of a scheme?

[GreenV8S]

CR0X said:

does anyone have any experience in calculating a footprint and buying and selling credits.

One of our clients is very environmentally concious and would like to buy some carbon credits of part of our investment portfolio (a 227 acre farm with 150K trees), but no way of knowing what to ask, and what we have to do to be part of a scheme?

I have no idea how anyone can use terms like 'carbon footprint' with a straight face and even less idea how one would go about buying carbon credits, but I'm intrigued to know what your clients are after.

They're investing in a farm/trees and want to buy some carbon credits from elsewhere to 'offset' the 'damage' that these trees are doing to the environment? Or are they thinking that since you have trees you must be able to sell them some credits?

The whole thing seems baffling daft to me, and the only way I can make sense of it is for you to allow them to rent part of the property from you in a way that still leaves you with the use of it.

[CR0X]

the property is only used for investment, i.e. growth in value of trees. There are substantial annual grants available for the property so it doesn't really cost anything a year. Especially when the only property is rented out.

The client wants to buy carbon credits from us, as the owner / investor etc. I have had a discussion with a company, but there is no straight easy way of doing it sadly.

The way I see it is that if we can, we can offer the credits to companies in our industry, making us look good, whilst making some quite easy money on the side for not doing a lot.

[danny1978]

tim,

i may be able to help with the carbon problem...
the amount of carbon the trees offset is calculated by an independent organisation so it will hav e a lot to do with how old your trees are and the species of tree.
we have looked into it as part of some of our investors portfolio's, it is interesting but the value of carbon credits have taken a bit of a hit recently!

let me know if you need anymore info...

dan

[CR0X]

Dan, YHM

[Eric Mc]

The science behind calculating "carbon offset" is akin to the science used in the following disciplines-

reading tea leaves
reading chickens' entrails
palm reading
crystal ball gazing
astrology
scientology
frenology

and

last but not least -


codology

[kryten]

Must admit that I've been looking (we have a lot of kit in datacentres) but it seems that most scheme's idea of 'carbon offset' is either:

a) like the OP, buying 'credit' on trees/other stuff that's already there
b) paying someone not to _increase_ their emissions as they probably would

Now, to my mind neither of these actually work. Our X-tons of carbon are still being added to the atmosphere.

What I actually want is a way to capture a similar amount of carbon that our energy use is producing, but doing so in a way that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

So, if we produce 1-ton of carbon, then we pay for 'something' that doesn't already exist and will remove 1-ton of carbon from the atmosphere.

[GreenV8S]

kryten said:

Now, to my mind neither of these actually work.

Of course they don't work, the whole concept is a farce. But they let you hold your head up high and tell the lentilists that you're carbon neutral, as if that was something the world cared about.

[Titanium lover]

contact : ICECAP