Project Overview

For over 20 years now leading organisations across the globe have been actively reducing their direct carbon emissions. The 1997 Kyoto protocol began to formalise this process by defining a set of significant greenhouse gases and agreed a mechanism to “offset” emissions by investing in carbon reduction and avoidance schemes in developing countries. This has channelled investment into much needed low carbon international development but has steered many organisations away from investing in UK based carbon reduction projects. One of the successes of the high-quality offset market has been the rigour that is now expected – but with UK projects you just can’t get round the additionality [1] and double-counting [2] thresholds that are now demanded.

For too many companies, offsetting has been the end-point of a technical exercise in quantifying their operational emissions. However, the last 20 years have seen the development of increasingly sophisticated approaches to carbon accounting, management and reduction. There is also recognition that reducing the direct carbon emissions of an organisation, while critical, is not the whole picture. No one operates in a vacuum but rather within a complex value chain of suppliers and customers, employees and other stakeholders where our impacts, influence and related decisions can go a long way. At Forum we would like to see companies integrate external reductions – in both the UK and internationally – into a climate strategy that tackles emissions, impacts and risks up and down their value chains.

This is where the Carbon Reporting Framework (CRF) comes in. Based on a series of clear methodologies the CRF provides a channel for funds to flow from business to local projects. Based on validated carbon accounting current methodologies developed for the CRF are:

Domestic retrofit
Small scale renewable energy
Forestry

All of these UK investments will result in CO2 reduction, while identifying additional societal benefits and the complexities outlined above. This presents the opportunity to support projects that resonate and alight with an organisation’s priorities, strategy and stakeholders.

Matchmaking between carbon reduction projects in the UK and potential funders isn’t a new idea but the CRF provides a transparent and consistent approach. It provides projects a platform from which to pitch themselves to receive investment while allowing potential funders to interrogate and identify the best fit for their organisation.

For more info see the dedicated website www.ukcarbonreporting.org

For more information contact Ben Ross.

[1] Ensuring that the project would not have happened anyway, i.e. that the investment made has actually made a difference. Given the relatively high interest in the UK in developing low-carbon solutions, and the wide variety of incentives that exist to encourage actions that reduce emissions, it can be very hard to demonstrate that the project might not have happened regardless.

[2] Ensuring that the carbon savings associated with a project are not counted by more than one entity. The problem here arises from the fact that the UK Government has embraced a national carbon reduction target. If the carbon savings resulting from a project are also captured in the UK national carbon accounts (and it’s likely that they will be), then the offsetter has paid for a reduction that the Government would have been obliged to provoke/provide anyway.