Principles and Standards
e)mission supports projects which lead to a change in behaviour, whether individual or organisational. Projects aim to intervene before avoidable emissions take place, following an ethos of prevention rather than cure. As such, and in line with recommendations of organisations such as the Gold Standard, e)mission does not invest in forestry sequestration because of the risk of non-permanence: forest fires return the carbon to the atmosphere, harvested biomass which is incinerated has the same effect, and decomposing biomass also returns carbon to the atmosphere.
We use partnerships with local organisations for project implementation to ensure projects make sense in the local setting and provide a source of income to the local community. Our projects are selected according to their contribution to sustainable development or support of innovative new ideas and technologies.
1. Technology type:
We only support projects that encourage the adoption of technologies that will have lasting benefits. We have a preference for innovative ideas and new technologies or methodologies that promote the transition to a low carbon society and result in permanent greenhouse gas reductions:
2. Additionality:
We only invest in projects that we are sure would not have gone ahead without carbon finance (the income we provide by selling the credits).
It is fundamental that your payment goes towards emission reduction projects that would not have happened anyway without your support. For each project, e)mission ensures that the funding we provide is crucial to the project going ahead - in the carbon business, this is known as additionality. All our projects are subject to an additionality test. We use the guidelines for additionality assessment of large and small projects developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.
3. Industry standards:
All our projects are developed according to strict industry design, implementation, monitoring and verification guidelines.
We follow the highly regulated standards set out by the CDM, and whenever possible also the Gold Standard, the most rigorous voluntary standard for carbon reduction projects developed by a group of NGOs including WWF. This ensures that all our projects are designed according to strict procedures and quality controls. All the information about the project is set out in a publicly available Project Design Document (PDD), which is validated by an independent third party and is subject to review by local stakeholders. Once active, projects are monitored regularly and the real emission reductions resulting are verified independently.
4. Contribution to sustainability:
We only support projects that have wider benefits to the community.
We believe that carbon finance should contribute to more than just emission reductions. All our projects bring wider benefits - economic, social or environmental - to the community where the project is located, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
5. Location:
We privilege project development in Portuguese-speaking countries, especially in Africa and Latin America.
As well as being among the least developed countries in the world, they are also among the countries most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, according to the IPCC. To date, very few of these countries have benefited from carbon finance investment, a mechanism originally intended to help these locations.
6. Retired credits:
For every tonne of carbon offset that we sell, we retire one tonne of carbon credit from our portfolio.
Whenever we sell an offset, we commit ourselves to retiring an equivalent amount of carbon credits from our portfolio. This means that the credits we have gained by investing in emission reduction will be removed from circulation and cannot be sold again.
7. What we invest in:
We support high quality renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean technology projects in developing countries, particularly in Portuguese-speaking Africa and Latin America. For more information please see the Our Projects section.
We do not invest in forestry sequestration because of the risk of non-permanence: forest fires return the carbon to the atmosphere, harvested biomass which is incinerated has the same effect, and decomposing biomass also returns carbon to the atmosphere. There are also issues of additionality which do not favour forest sequestration projects in developed countries.
8. Portfolio approach:
When neutralising your carbon footprint through the purchasing of carbon credits from e)mission projects’ portfolio you are funding a mixture of different technology and location projects. This approach minimises the risk associated to the management of our portfolio, and increase the diversity of stories (different projects, different realities) with which our clients can engage their stakeholders.
Standards are considered to be one of the most important factors when selecting carbon credits to purchase, in fact, they provide technical and quality assurance for buyers that want to neutralise their emissions.
To demonstrate that a carbon credit is a real emission reduction it has to be issued accordingly to one of the international recognised standards. Usually buyers are willing to pay higher prices for carbon credits validated and verified to stricter standards, such as The Gold Standard.
There are several different standards being used in the carbon markets’ projects, with different rules and criteria setting the way carbon credits are calculated and measured
Kyoto Protocol Flexible mechanisms (CDM & JI)
The Kyoto Protocol comprehends two certification programs – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI). These programs consist in providing certification for project-based emissions reductions, and in giving guidelines and establishing rules for baselines, additionality, monitoring, reporting, verification and certification, resulting in Certified Emission Reductions – CERs.
These certified carbon credits, CERs, are UN backed and are generated by large scale projects implemented in developing countries.
Both programs are characterised by being extremely rigorous and bureaucratic procedures.
Pre-CDM Registration
Emission reductions generated from projects that applied to CDM registration but are still waiting for confirmation (registration process is still pending), cannot be issued as CERs, however they can be verified as voluntary credits and being commercialised as pre-CDM VERs (Verified Emission Reductions).
Gold Standard (GS CDM/VER)
The Gold Standard is the strictest and highest quality standard among the worldwide recognised standards for emission reduction projects. This standard is strongly focused on sustainable development issues and environmental integrity: in fact it presents restrictions on technology types to projects that apply to the certification by this standard (no forestry and no large scale hydro or energy from waste projects can be included).
It has been developed in 2003 as a best practice methodology and a high quality carbon credit label for both compliance (in order to meet CDM requirements – GS CER credits) and voluntary markets (GS VER credits – with simplified validation and verification processes, aimed at small and micro scale projects), by a group or environmental NGOs who wanted to promote high quality projects with a focus on sustainable development benefits for the local communities.This standard is awarded to CDM, Joint Implementation and voluntary projects that have higher sustainable development credentials than required by the CDM rules, and also contribute to local sustainable development.
Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS)
The VCS is a quality standard for voluntary carbon offset industry. It was launched in November 2007 after a two year consultation process with the industry, NGOs and carbon market specialists.
Referring to Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) framework, this standard has being developed by the Climate Group, the World Economic Forum and the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), as well as the WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development), in order to establish criteria for validating, measuring and monitoring carbon offset projects exclusively on the voluntary market. The result is the creation of tradable Voluntary Carbon Units (VCUs) in a robust and transparent system.
Social Carbon Methodology
The SOCIALCARBON Standard is a methodology developed by the Ecologica Institute, a Brazilian non-profit entity, that certifies voluntary emission reduction projects for their contributions to sustainable development.
This concept arose from the need to ensure that emission reduction projects generate not only verified greenhouse gases emission reductions, but also actively contribute to the improvement of social and environmental performance as well as sustainable development of the communities involved.
The SocialCarbon methodology is founded on the principle that transparent assessment and monitoring of the social and environmental performance of projects can improve their long-term effectiveness, and thus add value to the VERs generated, focusing on a project’s lifelong sustainability. It is also distinctive by involving the local communities in the project design and assessment processes. This participation employs the full potential of human and natural resources to ensure stable and beneficial outcomes.
The SocialCarbon Standard is not a stand-alone carbon standard: it is an additional verification of sustainabilty parameters which works on top of another Standard, normally VCS (Voluntary Carbon Standard).
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