Improvements to the Carbon Planet web
.jpg)
We’ve been busy little beavers here at Carbon Planet, and have rolled out a lot of changes to our public web-site.
Forestry or Carbon Saving, now the choice is yours.
First up you have been asking us for a wider variety of carbon credits. Many of you have told us that, for whatever reasons, forestry just doesn’t cut ice with you. We still strongly support reforestation of course, but we also believe in choice. So as of today, when you check out of the web-store you can choose between forestry credits and our new stock of carbon saving credits derived from projects such as light-bulb and shower-head replacement schemes. This little change called for some sweeping changes across the site, updates to FAQs, and an overhaul of the back-end systems that manage the transfer of credits from our account in the greenhouse gas registry, to your account in the registry.
Only by transferring actual ownership of the carbon credits we sell to you, the customer, are we able guarantee that we are not double-dipping on our credits. No other carbon credits retailer offers this level of transparency. Indeed, without transferring ownership it’s hard to say you retail at all. Can you imagine going into a furniture store and handing over money for a new chair, only to be told that the chair you’ve paid for will be retained by the store on your behalf?
Gold Standard Credits available now
But that’s not all. For our business customers we now have so-called Gold Standard credits, endorsed by The WWF and others, available for sale. Carbon Planet has purchased a stock of gold standard VERs. We can’t sell them to our consumer retail customers yet however as they are not able to be traded automatically through a third-party registry, but we can retail them to business customers via formal contract. We are working hard to resolve this however and hope to be able to offer Gold Standard credits to our retail customers very soon.
Calling suppliers of carbon credits
Carbon Planet has published its procurement policy, outlining the requirements for suppliers of carbon credits in dealing with us. The seven points we stress are:
- Real emission reductions
- Certification
- Transfer of legal ownership
- Additionality
- Permanence
- Proper carbon accounting
- Ancillary environmental benefits
If your project satisfies all of these points then please get in touch with our carbon origination team.
The Traveller’s Tool
The other big change to the web-site is the launch of our new flight emissions calculator. It’s a public beta right now and we hope to get your feedback. The calculator lets you choose one-way or return flights, economy class, business or first class, and create a named trip log that comprises multiple flights. The emissions factors incorporate the radiative forcing index unlike many of the web based flight emissions calculators around, whose accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. For our travel industry partners we can now let you incorporate this calculator into your own systems, so your clients can compute their flight emissions right in your own site. Contact us for more details on this 3rd party integration.
All in all there have been hundreds of small changes to the web, including polishing of graphics, minor spelling and grammatical fixes and so forth, and, last but not least, the June issue of our newsletter, with a focus this issue on solar power, is now available for download. Enjoy. — DS
Technorati Tags: business, carbon credits, carbon offsetting, Carbon Planet, climate change, education, emissions reduction, emissions trading, energy efficiency, flights, global warming, Gold Standard, NGAC, solar, solar power, tourism, travel
