Carbon Offset ROI Not Certain Enough For Sun (12-Oct-07)
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Full story: Carbon Offset ROI Not Certain Enough For Sun (12-Oct-07)
Sun Microsystems feels that money spent on carbon offsets would be more beneficial if it were spent on other measures of lowering CO2 emissions. Thus the corporation are concentrating on more direct GHG reduction activities as opposed to taking the easy option of proclaiming carbon neutrality through the purchase of carbon offsets.
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Sun is pretty sure carbon offset money would be better spent on other measures that lower CO2 emissions more.
With reference to yesterday's blog I have been better educated on Sun's carbon offset thinking. The company's VP for eco-responsibility, David Douglas, puts forward a view that says carbon offset purchases of forests may not be the best way to remove greenhouse gases (GHG) from the environment.
The idea that forests can remove GHG is valid but they remove it over decades, leaving the GHG emitter free to carry on emitting, and the amount they remove depends upon how they are managed.
Douglas thinks that carbon offset schemes, admittedly better than nothing, act as a disincentive on other GHG reduction efforts that could have a stronger and more immediate effect.
There is no measure of the effectiveness of £100 of carbon offset spending versus the effectiveness of £100 spent on other GHG-reducing measures. Douglas says that if we treat GHG reduction/removal as the return on investment of GHG reduction/removal spending then we can see that there is no net present value (NPV) calculation.
What is the value in green ROI terms of £100 spent on, say, energy-effiicient light bulbs in ten years time versus the same amount spent on a carbon offset forest?
It is unclear. Until carbon offset scheme's green ROI is clearer Sun will prefer to spend its GHG reduction investments elsewhere. It may start purchasing offsets to counter the GHG emission effects of business travel at some stage.
But for now Sun is concentrating on more direct GHG reduction activities and is not taking the easy option of proclaiming its carbon neutrality (are you listening Dell, RackSpace and others?) through a relatively cheap purchase of carbon offsets.
The situation is too serious, we might think, to be putting green lipstick on a pig.
- Source: Techworld
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