Brighter Planet

How does Brighter Planet choose quality carbon offsets?

Working with our Advisory Board, Brighter Planet has defined a Carbon Offset Policy that specifies our criteria for high-quality projects. To summarize, they must be “permanent,” “additional,” and “transparent”; they must lead to “new construction”; and they must have a strong element of “social value-added.”

The Project Selection Committee (PSC) reviews proposed project materials against the Carbon Offset Policy before they are added to our portfolio. No project is added to the portfolio without PSC approval.

Brighter Planet also has an auditing process in place whereby an independent auditor verifies each year that we adhere to the Carbon Offset Policy set by our Advisory Board.

Finally, we maximize the performance of our portfolio by choosing projects that are geographically and technologically diversified.

In what way are Brighter Planet offsets “premium”?

We fix a market failure that is stalling development of smaller, distributed projects. Here’s how it works:

1. We work with projects under development that need additional revenues from offset sales to get financed and built. These projects are financed on a long-term basis, so they need to know that they’ll have these extra revenues on a long-term basis. The problem is that few buyers in the voluntary retail market are offering long-term offset purchase contracts, especially for volumes as small as those produced by our projects. That leaves many of these projects unable to secure financing.
2. Our partner, NativeEnergy commits to these projects that if they proceed with development, when they achieve and demonstrate successful operations, NativeEnergy will purchase and pay up front for all the offsets their project is conservatively estimated to generate over its operating life. NativeEnergy’s up-front purchase commitment reduces their up-front investment costs, making the project profitable enough to be built. The projects get what they need, without anyone having to make an unwanted long-term commitment.
3. Brighter Planet members make a difference by buying a share of the project’s conservatively estimated lifetime offset production up-front. As the projects really need the extra revenues, and our customers provide them, each of our customers has a direct and immediate impact in bringing a new project on line.
4. To claim the offsets on your behalf, Brighter Planet needs to make sure that they will be retired as they are generated. That’s why we donate our offsets to Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP), an independent non-profit 501©(3), who commits to do exactly that. CA-CP’s role is like a land trust that you would donate land to for conservation, if you didn’t want it developed.
5. CA-CP will retire for you 100% of the offsets your share of your project generates. The actual amount, however is estimated, so it may be more or fewer than we predict. If it’s more, then you’re helping the environment even more than you thought. If it’s fewer, NativeEnergy will make up the deficit with surplus offsets from another project

Offset quality Q & A

Mark Trexler of Trexler Climate + Energy Services, an independent environmental consulting firm, suggests that consumers ask their carbon offset providers a set of seven questions:

Consumers can … intervene to promote the quality of the offsets they are buying and encourage increased market transparency. They can do so by posing questions such as the following to retail offset providers:

Here are Trexler’s questions and Brighter Planet’s answers.

1) Do your offsets result from specific emissions reduction or sequestration projects?

Brighter Planet carbon offsets are from emissions reduction projects. Reforestation and other sequestration projects usually do not meet our Carbon Offset Policy, because they are not permanent (if a tree burns down, it releases its carbon) or additional (CO₂ injection for oil extraction is simply “business as usual”).

2) Do you use an objective standard to ensure the additionality and quality of the offsets you sell?

Brighter Planet offsets are additional according to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Tool for the demonstration and assessment of additionality.

3) Can you show me that the projects in your portfolio would not have happened without the GHG offset market?

You can read about the stories behind our projects on our website. In each case, there was a clear need for funding from the sale of offsets.

4) Have your offsets been validated against a particular third-party standard by a credible source?

Brighter Planet offsets are additional according to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Tool for the demonstration and assessment of additionality.

5) Are you selling offsets that will accrue in the future? If so, how long into the future, and can you explain why you need to “forward sell” the offsets?

Yes, Brighter Planet offsets are “future-stream” offsets. They are sourced from projects that will begin commercial operations within one year of purchase, and represent the offset production over the entire lifetime of the particular project, up to 25 years. The need to forward sell the offsets is explained for each project on our website, and furthermore each project is additional according to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Tool for the demonstration and assessment of additionality.

6) Can you demonstrate that your offsets are not being sold to multiple buyers?

Brighter Planet works with Clean Air-Cool Planet, a non-profit 501( c )( 3 ) organization, to permanently retire carbon offsets.

7) What are you doing to educate your buyers about global warming and the need for global warming policy?

Brighter Planet provides a great deal of information and education on our website about climate change and what consumers can do about it. This includes tips on how to reduce your carbon impact through traditional means such as conserving and recycling, and also explains how Brighter Planet products make it possible to do even more. With regard to promoting the need for environmental policy, Brighter Planet is in full agreement with Bill McKibben (a member of our Advisory Board), in promoting a nationwide political movement to reduce emissions.

(A Consumers’ Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers, pg. 13. Prepared by Trexler Climate + Energy Services for Clean Air-Cool Planet, 2006.)