New Certification Standard Proposed for Climate Offset Products

GreenBiz

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 21, 2006 - A new Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Product Certification Standard has been published for stakeholder comment by the Center for Resource Solutions.

CRS is developing the new standard with the Green-e GHG Advisory Group, composed of key environmental organizations, government agencies, businesses, and advocacy organizations who work on climate change issues.

CRS believes the creation of this draft standard is the first step in ensuring credibility in the marketplace for voluntary GHG reduction products, such as carbon offsets offered to help "neutralize" an individual's or organization's climate impacts. Based on recent press coverage and uncertainty in the marketplace, it is evident that buyers of these products are seeking a higher level of certainty in the market about the quality of products. CRS aims to provide consumer protection to the growing number of individuals and businesses who choose to decrease their own contribution to global warming by purchasing greenhouse gas reductions.

CRS’ well-established stakeholder process is the next step in ensuring a well-designed standard that meets the needs of the marketplace. "We believe in transparency above all else," said Jan Hamrin, president of the Center for Resource Solutions. “For the past six months, CRS staff has worked with the GHG Advisory Group to craft an independent standard we feel confident in. Just as we did with the Green-e standard for renewable energy products, this new standard will incorporate stakeholder comments from any interested party. This ensures a well designed, well-rounded standard that considers suggestions from every pertinent angle. Based on our past successes, we believe this is the best way to create standards and invite anyone interested to participate in the comment period.”

The Green-e Program is developing this new certification standard to ensure customers are getting high quality reductions and are protected from double counting and misleading marketing practices.

For 10 years, CRS has developed standards for renewable energy in a complex regulatory environment. CRS brings that valuable experience to the table in the creation of this new standard for greenhouse gas reduction products. The CRS consumer protection standards use transparent, open, stakeholder-driven processes to ensure consensus-based standards that are widely accepted by stakeholders.

The draft standard will be out for comment until the end of January 2007. The draft standard, along with instructions on how to submit comments, can be found online CRS will host a stakeholder conference call in late January to answer questions about the draft Standard. Interested parties should contact Alex Pennock at alex@resource-solutions.org.