TechCrunch has an interesting story on Zerofootprint, a Canadian not-for-profit that helps businesses and consumers cut their carbon footprint. It’s the company Air Canada recently partnered with to introduce its voluntary carbon credit program for customers.
The carbon credit industry has been taking a lot of heat lately for not properly monitoring sellers to ensure proper carbon reduction. Zerofootrpint says they do not buy offsets from exchanges because of these concerns. Instead they work directly with sellers, usually tree growers, and make sure they are legally bound to leave the trees in perpetuity.
According to the article, the company charges 10 percent over their cost when selling offsets. They say this helps cover their operating costs. Also, they buy offsets in bulk and in advance, and they have some capital risk.
The company also just planted its Zerofootprint Seal on a consumer product for the first time. Zerofootprint says that the seal signifies that the materials and manufacturing process used to produce a product have virtually no negative environmental repercussions.
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Comments
ZeroFootprint sold 200,000 tonnes worth of Carbon Credits, and for it, it planted a grand total of 25,000 trees. At $10 per tonne, Zerofootprint made $2,000,000 dollars, and planted 25,000 trees for it. Planting trees with a reputable firm will cost you around $1 per tree. Not a bad profit there: $25,000 for trees, $2,000,000 in revenues, that’s a profit of 1,975,000 or 99%. And anybody who’s ever done any treeplanting would know, you could plant over 200,000 seedlings by yourself in a planting season. They claim they planted 25,000 trees in one year, which is exactly what one planter can do in about 10 days.
This year, they suggest to be planting 100,000 trees, so in keeping with their math, they sold $8,000,000 worth of credits. Not a bad business to be in!
Erwin
Erwin Gerrits June 14th, 2007www.erwingerrits.com