Uncategorized 09 Aug 2007 01:05 pm
Lyttelton Carbon Offset Scheme for Air Miles by Wendy Everingham
PPL is always thinking laterally about how to link with people and groups around the harbour that embody what our aims are. With all the information about carbon footprints and carbon offsets we began to think how we could participate locally. Many of us fly regularly and the idea was suggested about getting local people who fly to off set air miles locally by helping with planting or monetary donations for the Reserve 68 team.
How would this work? Courtesy of the Lincoln University Carbon Zero group you can use their calculator to work out the dollar cost of your carbon offset. http://www.carbonzero.co.nz/calculators/calculators_tourist.asp You then simply write a cheque to PPL (1-4 Harmans Rd Lyttelton) and we will donate the money to the Reserve Committee, alternatively you can figure out how many hours of labour you could provide to plant trees. Working bees are the third Saturday of each month at 1pm at the far end of Gilmour Terrace and the team would be happy for any contribution you could make. This is a great way to help locals re-generate the native plant environment, whilst mitigating the negative effects of flying.
Sue-Ellen Sandilands is the first person to contribute to the scheme.
on 13 Aug 2007 at 16:49 1.sam said …
This is a great idea! Needs as much promotion as possible locally though!
on 29 Sep 2008 at 17:32 2.Rob said …
Hi, I am a University of Canterbury student who recently took part in a research project with the PPL on household carbon budgets. I researched a lot on offsetting carbon emissions. Just reading the above posting, i was wondering if Resrve 68 is a certified carbon credits project. Below is some info off www.carbonzero.co.nz regarding the rules for offsetting in NZ.
Carbon credits may be Kyoto units or voluntary carbon credits.
* Kyoto units are created from Government-approved projects that have been allocated assigned amount units or AAUs and from clean development mechanism (CDM) projects validated through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
* Voluntary carbon credits are produced outside the regulatory framework and are often created through community projects. These credits may have additional ecological and social value.
Projects that create Kyoto units must meet Kyoto rules related to baseline, additionality, redundancy, permanence and leakage. These terms are defined in our glossary. To ensure that the projects meet these rules, validation and verification is undertaken against recognised international standards such as the Gold Standard and ISO14064-2. Voluntary carbon credits can be validated and verified against the Voluntary Carbon Standard.
If Resrve 68 is certified, all good. But if not, calculating your flight emissions on carbonzero then donating the money to Reserve 68 may be a flawed system in terms of actually/legally offsetting your emissions. Carbonzero is certified as it has certified projects such as EBEX21 and windpower projects.
I’m not criticising the Reserve 68 project as it is great for the environment, but am just wondering if it is misleading( if it is not certified).
Post me back with any comments/info.
Cheers rob