ClimateCluster initiative backs Indian low carbon projects

Offset provider The CarbonNeutral Company has this week launched a new service designed to allow customers the opportunity to simultaneously support both large scale energy efficiency projects and smaller community-based carbon reduction initiatives.

Under the scheme, entitled ClimateCluster, customers' offsets will be delivered through a combination of two Indian projects, a large waste heat recovery project at a steel factory and a pilot low-carbon lighting scheme that will provide midwives in Gujarat with new solar powered head torches that will replace carbon-intensive kerosene lamps.

The company said that for every tonne of CO2 reductions sold through the new service, £1 will be donated to the lighting programme.

Firms buying offsets through the ClimateCluster programme will receive three reports a year on the progress of the lighting project, with the whole programme being verified by PwC as part of its annual audit of the CarbonNeutral Company's activities.

"ClimateCluster enables our clients to offset their emissions and to finance innovative projects that accelerate progress towards a low-carbon economy," said Jonathan Shopley, executive director at The CarbonNeutral Company. "It respects offsetting as a business service with associated guarantees, while allowing our clients to contribute to schemes that are needed to bring scale and innovation to our best efforts to control climate change."

The new initiative is likely to be interpreted as a means by which The CarbonNeutral Company can continue to support small-scale, community-based carbon reduction projects despite growing opposition to such schemes from various offset accreditation bodies.

Several proposed standards for offsetting projects, including the UK government's draft code of best practice, have insisted that only projects that meet the requirements of the UN's Clean Development Mechanism should be authorised to sell offset credit. However, many offset providers have argued that community-based projects cannot afford to attain UN accreditation and as such the new standards could exclude them from the carbon market, despite their effectiveness at reducing emissions.

The ClimateCluster programme appears to attempt to sidestep this potential problem by investing in large projects likely to comply with any new standards, while still providing funds for smaller initiatives.

A spokeswoman for the company, however, insisted that the initiative was not a direct response to the development of new standards, but added that it would provide a means of "supporting a project that could not sell credits on the open carbon market".