Carbon Trust Launches Carbon Reduction Certification Program

June 24, 2008

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The Carbon Trust has launched a new green standard that requires an organization to measure, manage and reduce its carbon footprint and make reductions year-on-year. The Carbon Trust Standard requires organizations to take action themselves rather than paying others to reduce via off-setting.

“What business and consumers both share is a desire for one, credible way to prove an organisation has not only measured, but actually reduced their carbon emissions year-on-year without the use of offsetting,” said Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust. “The Carbon Trust Standard is the only answer to this.”

The standard only covers direct emissions, according to The Guardian:

The standard covers only direct emissions from a company’s fuel and electricity use, as well as from business travel such as flights. It does not cover the emissions caused by a firm’s products, or supply chain. And companies with polluting manufacturing sites abroad would not have to count them if they sought accreditation, say, for a head office in London.

The cost of assessment and certification depends on the energy bill of the organization and whether or not it needs help gathering information on its energy use. Costs can hit 12,000 pounds.

The standard is being supported by a number of organizations with 12 companies, Including Abbey Corrugated, B&Q, Defra, King’s College London, and Morrisons, being awarded the standard at its launch. Carbon Standard says that the companies have collectively achieved an 8.4% reduction in their carbon emissions over three years, which translates into carbon savings of over 250,000 tonnes of CO2.

Carbon labels, developed by Carbon Trust in partnership with Defra and BSI British Standards, are currently being tested by a number of brands.

A report released in November on the Carbon Trust by the UK’s top spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, said only 12 percent of large UK businesses had worked with the group to lower their emissions and only 40 percent of the possible savings identified by the trust between 2003 and 2006 had been implemented.

Climate Leaders is an EPA industry-government partnership that works with U.S. companies to develop climate change strategies. Partner companies commit to reducing their impact on the environment by completing a corporate-wide inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions, setting aggressive reduction goals, and annually reporting their progress to EPA.

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Reader Comments

It should be noted that this is not a “Standard” in the normal meaning of the word. Standards are published by national or international standardisation bodies (examples being BSI, CENELEC, ISO, IEC, etc).
It also seems to take litle account of current standardisation work on Energy Saving – such as the draft peEN16001 covering Energy Management Systems.
There is significant work ongoing (quietly in the background) in the UK, in Europe (CEN & CENELEC) and at ISO on preparation of standards covering aspects of Energy Savings.
Last Wednesday 25 June, there was a conference on this topic at the ICO in London.
There is also some concern being rxpressed at the “Marketing Announcements” of some companies about their Green’ness. Some are genuine while many seem to use assorted means to justify their claims.

Kris Szajdzicki | June 27th, 2008