CARBON IN THE NEWS

WEEK 30 2012

Qantas signs 5-year deal on carbon offsets

Australian airline Qantas has signed a deal to buy up to 1.5 million offset credits over five years to meet part of its liabilities under Australia's carbon pricing scheme and offer voluntary offsets to passengers. The offsets will be generated from managing Henbury Station, a 500,000 acre natural landscape in the Northern Territory, in which owners R.M. Williams hope to store up to 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. "How many credits we buy depends on take-up of our voluntary carbon offset program," Tom Woodward, a Qantas spokesman, told Reuters Point Carbon by email on Wednesday. "We have typically purchased around 300,000 tonnes of carbon credits per year under the voluntary program and we'd expect to be able to source a majority of this from Henbury in future," he said. Domestic air traffic in Australia was brought under the nation's carbon pricing scheme from July 1, and the Henbury project, which will seek eligibility under the Carbon Farming Initiative CFI.L, can earn offsets that can cover some of Qantas' liability. To read this article in full click here

More global investors ‘seeking advice of sustainability’

THE number of global investors asking for information on sustainability has increased dramatically since 2001, with SA is taking the lead in sustainability reporting. The CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), Paul Simpson, said yesterday while carbon disclosure was initially resisted by international companies, the situation had changed with more than half the world’s investor capital — 655 investors managing $78-trillion of assets — having sought information on climate change.  Mr Simpson attributed the rapid growth in interest to factors including ethical values investment, superior returns, and the financial crisis.  He addressed a JSE discussion on global trends in responsible investment yesterday. Companies listed on the JSE will have to report on sustainability and responsible investment in addition to financial reports. Yesterday’s discussion followed last month’s United Nations Rio+20 sustainability summit, where SA was asked to help other countries with sustainable and integrated reporting because of its expertise in this field. To read this article in full click here

Toshiba Air Conditioning becomes a carbon neutral business

Toshiba Air Conditioning in the UK has been officially recognised as a CarbonNeutral business. The announcement follows an intensive programme of carbon reduction and supporting certified carbon offsetting projects with The CarbonNeutral Company, which is believed to be the leading verification and certification body in the field.The pioneering project required a detailed assessment of energy consumption and carbon emissions across all the company's activities, even taking into account employees' journeys to and from work. The programme began last year with a detailed Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Assessment to quantify the total greenhouse gases produced both directly and indirectly by the company's activities. Toshiba worked with sustainability consultant Ecometrica to carry out a detailed audit of all its activities. To read this article in full click here

Capegemini wins award for green travel

IT consulting and professional services firm, Capegemini, has won an award for its green travel initiatives. The firm won the award for its eco-friendly corporate travel programme, which is to include personal carbon budgets from next year, and which is called TravelWell. The award was presented to the winner by BusinessGreen, a website that offers news, information and advice on environmental responsibility. The firm won the Green Transport Project of the Year award. The website also stated that next year, in the region of 400 Capgemini employees in the United Kingdom would, ‘find out if they can stay within their new carbon budgets as part of the latest phase of the company’s pioneering, TravelWell programme.’ The IT firm won the award for its travel disclosures and its eco-consciousness. It already reports individual business travellers’ carbon emissions. About 6,000 of such reports have been made available through an intranet site.  The company is also planning to include more workers under its current plan, and if everything falls into place, then 7,500 of the firm’s employees will come under the programme in 2014. To read this article in full click here

Tracking companies' carbon emissions using public data

Max Horster joined South Pole Carbon Asset Management two years ago to design climate-neutral investment portfolios. But there was a problem: Only 3,000 of the world’s 40,000 listed companies published emission figures, and most of those weren’t trustworthy. It’s not that companies are purposely hiding the correct numbers, he said. They just don’t put much effort into it. “In an extreme case, they'll bring in an intern who studied natural science, and they'll say, ‘Hey can you do our carbon footprinting?’” he explained. “And this intern may misplace a zero or confuse thousands with millions -- resulting in not so great data – but it is still given to investors to supposedly help them make responsible investment decisions.”  So he created an online tool that’s helping institutional investors develop a global database of emissions for all listed companies. It works by first identifying those companies whose self-disclosed emissions are trustworthy and then extrapolating to similar companies. This data is then used to formulate questions for stockholders to ask their companies concerning environmental policies and regulations. Institutional investors can become actively engaged in a company’s strategy for sustainability and management of emission reductions.To read this article in full click here

UK carbon targets promise $10bn boost to IT market

The UK's target to cut carbon emissions by a 34 per cent against 1990 levels by 2020 will deliver a dividend worth between $5bn and $15bn to the country's IT market, according to new research. The report from green consultancy Cambium LLP analyses the role IT can play in enabling emission reductions in carbon-intensive sectors, such as energy, transport and manufacturing. Drawing on previous research on the green IT market, it calculates that IT's role in emission-reduction enabling technologies such as smart grids, smart building management, videoconferencing, and the dematerialising of products will be worth between $5bn and $15bn a year by 2020, with a most likely scenario of $9.74bn. Speaking to BusinessGreen, report author Iain Burns said that research had shown that 30 per cent global emission reduction targets will have to be enabled by IT systems. To read this article in full click here

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