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AT-A-GLANCE FACT SHEET Founded: In 2006 by Dr. James Tansey, University of British Columbia Associate Professor and Executive Director ISIS, A Research Centre at UBC’s Sauder School of Business Senior Leadership Team James Tansey – CEO Jeff Calvert – CFO and VP, Marketing & Client Engagement Joerg Germann – CTO Steve Baczko – VP, Business Development Phil Cull – VP, Sourcing Our Current Mailing Address Suite 1000 – 675 W. Hastings Street Vancouver, British Columbia, V6B 1N2 Canada Telephone 604.646.0400 Our Mission We promote a shift to a low carbon future by helping our clients to understand, reduce, and offset their climate impact. Website www.offsetters.ca Media Contact [email protected] or 778.945.0955
Key Clients and Partners
• Aimia • Canadian Olympic Committee • FortisBC • Harbour Air Seaplanes • Hemlock Printers • lululemon athletica • Vancity • More than 150 different partners across all sectors
COMPANY OVERVIEW WHO WE ARE
We are North America’s first and leading carbon management solutions provider. We were founded in 2006, by Dr. James Tansey, a professor at the University of British Columbia who specializes in business, the environment and climate change, when he saw a need for a local, high-quality source of carbon offsets.
We got our start with two grants: one from Environment Canada and one from Vancity. Initially, we focused on providing individual consumers with emission reductions that we purchased from trusted international projects. Soon our business grew to include organizations as well as individuals, and, before we knew it, we were developing our own offset projects in Canada and abroad.
We’ve since expanded to provide a full suite of services including conducting carbon and water inventories; helping plan and measure emissions reductions; tracking environmental data through our online sustainability dashboard; developing carbon offset projects in Canada and around the world, and helping our clients leverage their sustainability story to add real brand value.
Today, we have a staff of close to 30 based in beautiful Vancouver, Canada and an office in Portland, Oregon. Our team includes experts in greenhouse gas measurement, highly skilled professionals who work on developing new offset projects, a roster of registered professional foresters and leaders in the marketing of social and environmental services.
In late 2012, we merged with ERA Carbon Offsets Ltd. As part of this merger, we changed our name to Offsetters Climate Solutions reflecting the strategic focus of our merged entity, as a leading international carbon offset project developer, a full service advisory on corporate sustainability, and a complementary custom software solution developer for carbon and sustainability.
WHAT WE DO
We promote the shift to a low-carbon future by helping our clients understand, reduce, and offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
We develop and procure carbon offsets using the highest quality standards.
We partner with organizations to create unique programs that enhance their brand and make a difference.
FIRSTS
• First Canadian company to co-develop a Gold Standard cookstove project in Africa
• First Official Supplier of Carbon Offsets in Olympic Games history, commencing with the sponsorship Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games
• First developer of high-quality carbon offset projects in British Columbia and in Canada
• First Canadian company to be listed on a Verified Carbon Standard (formerly Voluntary Carbon Standard) registry—Markit
• Largest initial supplier to the Pacific Carbon Trust, a BC Crown Corporation
• Only Canadian Accredited Consultancy Partner of the CDP, who provides a global system for companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage and share vital environmental information
• First Canadian member of the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICORA)
• Official Supplier of GLOBE 2014 Carbon offsets
• Official Sponsor of Carbon Offsets for Sustainable Brands San Diego 2014
SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESSES
Businesses have many reasons for understanding and lowering their carbon emissions. In addition to making a positive impact on the environment, lowering emissions can reduce operating costs, increase revenue opportunities, have positive marketing benefits and improve employee attraction and engagement levels.
We work with companies to measure their current footprint, identify opportunities for reductions and provide high quality offsets for purchase if companies wish to reduce their footprints beyond what internal reductions can achieve.
To date, we have worked with more than 150 organizations across North America to understand, reduce, offset and engage. Our services include:
Understand • Corporate emissions inventory: an
organization’s annual carbon footprint • Life cycle inventory: emissions at each
stage of a product’s life cycle • Value chain inventory: the
environmental impacts of your supply chain
• Water footprinting: water impact for product, organization, or supply chain
• Event inventories, including low-carbon planning and best practices
• Sustainability dashboard software: online software to track your organization’s environmental data
Reduce
• Emissions reductions strategies: practical and cost-effective methods to reduce your GHG emissions, waste and water use
Offset
• Development of high-quality carbon offset projects in Canada and around the world
• Offset project co-development: our team can help reduce the cost, overcome the challenges, and mitigate the risks of getting offset projects off the ground
• Sales of carbon offsets to organizations and individuals from both Offsetters’ own projects, as well as international high quality projects
• Offset project development software: to track the project lifecycle and serialize carbon credits through creation, verification, transaction and retirement
Engage
• Marketing support: we help our clients and partners leverage their sustainability story to add real brand value
• Co-branded programs: we also partner to offer co-branded programs • Designation of ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘climate friendly’ companies, products, and
events (with supporting Offsetters marks for client and partner use)
ENDORSEMENTS
We are proud of the company we keep and have been recognized as Canada’s top provider of carbon offsets by experts in the environmental field, as well as public and private sector organizations.
“Offsetters have been brilliant in helping Aimia to quantify our greenhouse gas emissions, to understand those measurements and to look for reductions. They are the experts we turn to, year over year, for ethical and exact interpretations of our worldwide data, and for our commitment to transparent participation in the Carbon Disclosure project.” - Aimia “Harbour Air is confident that all funds are going to real, additional, permanent projects in British Columbia with social and economic value for the Province.” - Harbour Air Seaplanes “Offsetters was the ideal partner to most thoroughly and efficiently complete our first product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) project. Their extensive experience with LCAs, offsets and corporate communications was extremely valuable to Nautica both for this project as well as our long-term sustainability strategy.” - Nautica
“We are very happy with the quality of offsets supplied by Offsetters. Pioneers in their field, Offsetters are leaders in the effort to create a high quality supply of local offsets." – Vancity
OUR OFFSET PROJECTS
Our team of industry leaders specializes in the origination, development and commercialization of high-quality carbon offset projects from a variety of project types, throughout Canada and Africa. If businesses and individuals want to further reduce their emissions, we provide them with the opportunity to purchase offsets..
When evaluating which projects to develop and invest in, we choose projects that are:
• Real: The emissions are third party validated at the beginning of the project and then verified to have actually happened. We enlist engineering and
accounting firms that are accredited to do this. We provide our carbon credits at the end of this process once the emissions reductions have been realized.
• Additional: We ensure that the emission reductions are additional to any reductions that would have happened without our intervention. Our funds help to overcome a barrier (financial and/or technical) that would have otherwise prevented the project from happening.
• Permanent: The reductions are lasting and cannot be reversed.
• Socially beneficial: Our projects bring social and local environmental benefits as well as climate gains. For example, we provided funding for the installation of ground source heat pumps in a number of community organizations (schools, First Nations band offices, community centres, etc.). The heat pumps had up to 75 per cent lower operating costs than the incumbent technology, and the savings were used to improve the social programs available to users of the facilities.
We also source credits from international Gold Standard or Verified Carbon Standard projects around the world. Though most of our international investments have been made in collaboration with other offset providers, in June 2010, we became the first Canadian company to co-develop a Gold Standard Cookstove project in Africa. Offset project types include:
• Fuel-reduction programmes in transportation • Landfill gas capture • Biomass fuel switching • Distribution of efficient cookstoves in Uganda • Energy efficiency • Ground source heat pumps • Small-scale hydroelectricity • Installation of wind turbines • Improved forest management • Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) • Improved forest management
We have over 30 active projects with more on the drawing board. Some projects that have been developed with our investment include:
SunSelect Produce Inc. Carbon offset funds enabled the greenhouse operator to switch from a natural gas boiler to a biomass boiler to meet the heating needs of an existing commercial greenhouse producing fruits and vegetables. Use of the biomass boiler and heat trapping curtains for most of the facility’s heat requirements reduces annual greenhouse
Efficient Wood Cook Stoves in Uganda More than 95 per cent of Ugandans rely on fuel wood for cooking. Traditional stoves used for cooking have low efficiencies, increasing the amount of fuel wood required to prepare a meal. These new stoves increase efficiency and reduce fuel wood consumption by more than 50 per cent compared to traditional technology. The aim of the project is to reduce the stove
price to an affordable level and to promote it for widespread dissemination. We’re proud to be the first Canadian company to co-develop a Gold Standard cook stove project in Africa. gas emissions relative to the natural gas baseline.
Carbon Offset Aggregation Co-operative Carbon offset funds enabled the implementation of energy efficiency measures for various industrial vehicles and machinery throughout the province. The Carbon Offset Aggregation Cooperative (COAC), launched by the Central Interior Logging Association, is the first organization of this type to be developed in BC, marking a turning point in BC’s carbon
market. The COAC program provides an opportunity for truck and equipment owners to reduce diesel consumption through a full cycle program of technology installation, training, monitoring, reporting and marketing. By implementing energy efficiency measures for entire fleets, the amount of diesel consumed can be reduced significantly, benefitting both the environment and the economy.
Mai Ndombe REDD+ This is the first REDD+ Project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – supported by the Congolese government and the UN REDD Programme. It protects 300,000 hectares of tropical rainforest from complete loss of forest cover and has multiple positive effects on climate change mitigation and the protection of biodiversity and local living
conditions. Carbon offsets have facilitated the conversion of two large timber concessions into a long-term conservation concession and supported related local livelihood enhancement initiatives. The area is also home to 50,000 people, many of whom make a living from fishing, shifting cultivation and charcoal production. We work closely with local communities to facilitate community-based conservation enhancement and agricultural enhancement. In addition, several socio and economic community benefits will result from project activities including: building schools, a mobile medical clinic, vaccination program, school supply distribution and ongoing capacity building workshops for employees and project area communities.
Finally, we recognize the major critiques of carbon offsets and only choose projects that avoid or account for:
• Double Counting: The offset can only be claimed by one person – the final buyer of the carbon credit. We register our offsets on recognized registries (including Markit and the Gold Standard Registry) to ensure this is the case.
• Inconsistent Timescale: Our projects create the emissions reductions right away. Unlike tree planting offset projects, there is no payback time. The emissions reductions take place in the year you buy the offsets or earlier.
• Leakage: We look at all the sources of emissions generated by our projects
and factor these into our carbon accounting. For example, if a project uses a lower emissions fuel source, but requires trucking in that fuel source, then we take the additional transportation emissions into our accounting of the total emissions savings.
These are the same high standards that rigorous certifications such as the Gold Standard and the Verified Carbon Standard use. More information about these and other projects can be found online at http://www.offsetters.ca/offset-projects
OUR PARTNERS
We are privileged to work with some innovative companies throughout North America, many of whom are both leaders in climate change and as well as leaders in their sector. Because of the work we are doing together, we view our relationships as partnerships in creating real positive change.
Here are some examples of how we’ve worked with a few of our partners to create climate benefits:
Vancity, a sustainability leader, initially had mixed feelings about offsets, so they did a heck of a lot of research. After evaluating their own carbon footprint, they formed a committee with members of the David Suzuki Foundation, Ecotrust Canada and the Pembina Institute to develop criteria for their offsets. They then hired a third party environmental expert, the Pembina Institute, to actually find offsets that met their high standards. That’s where we came in. The Pembina Institute determined that our offsets met Vancity’s criteria, and we worked with them to develop a portfolio of renewable energy projects just for Vancity. In 2008, Vancity was the first North American-based financial institution to become carbon neutral.
Harbour Air Seaplanes was our first major customer (thanks again Harbour Air), and they, in turn, were the first carbon neutral airline in North America! Back in 2007, we worked with Harbour Air to inventory the emissions for their entire operations, identified opportunities for internal reductions and came up with an offset purchase strategy. Harbour Air offsets all their emissions, and rolls a small offset surcharge into price of each ticket to cover the flight emissions. They are now on their fourth year of carbon neutrality and have seen many positive benefits, including increased passenger traffic.
We’re excited to be working with Aimia (formerly Groupe Aeroplan) — a loyalty industry leader with global reach committed to working towards reducing climate impact.
Since 2007, Aimia has participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project, an independent international effort that collects high-quality carbon footprint information from corporations worldwide.
In Canada, Aeroplan’s Carbon Offset Program was created as part of its Green It Up program to enable members to use Aerpolan Miles to buy carbon credits to offset the emissions generated by their air, travel, car rentals and everyday activities.
Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games were the first carbon neutral Games in history, and we’re proud of the important role we played as Official Carbon Offset Supplier.
With their pioneering commitment to a carbon neutral event, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) assessed the unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions from all their operations leading up to and hosting the event. Then they came to Offsetters for a portfolio of new, clean energy technology projects to offset these emissions.
During the 2010 Winter Games, we engaged sponsors and spectators with the message that everyone has a role to play in making the Games carbon neutral. In fact, you may have seen our Nielsenheimer Brothers around Vancouver spreading the word that without winter, there could be no winter games.
To see a full listing of our forward thinking partners, check out www.offsetters.ca.
OUR LEADERSHIP
We have some of the industry’s best and the brightest on our team. Our staff has a broad range of expertise, from engineering to social sciences to marketing, and has tons (pardon the pun) of interesting life experience.
Dr. James Tansey is the CEO and co-founder of Offsetters. He is also the Executive Director of ISIS, a Research Centre at the Sauder School of Business, focused on leveraging business tools to advance social innovation and sustainability. James' research activities cover a number of areas including social enterprise, climate change and social impacts and acceptability of new technologies. In 2006, James saw a growing demand amongst colleagues and corporations in BC for a dependable source of high-quality offsets; Offsetters was created to serve that need.
James has worked as an advisor and contributor to the United Nations Environment Programme, World Economic Forum, the UK National Audit Office, Oxford Analytica, Cisco, ISIS Innovation (Oxford), Environment Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. In 2013, James was recognized by the province of British Columbia with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his outstanding service to the community and the environment. And, In 2010, James was recognized as a Top 40 Under 40 by Business in Vancouver and was a Pacific finalist in the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year® 2010 Awards.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is a carbon offset?
A “carbon offset” (aka a carbon credit, a VER, or a CER) occurs when an individual or organization emits a given amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) but invests in measures that will pull the equivalent volume of GHG out of the atmosphere or prevent other emissions from taking place at all. Carbon offsets are a financial instrument representing this reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Although there are many kinds of GHGs, offsets are measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent for simplicity (i.e., all other gases are converted to equivalent amounts of CO2 based on their global warming potential).
What is a carbon footprint?
A “carbon footprint” (also known as a carbon inventory, carbon audit or GHG inventory) is an accurate assessment of all the greenhouse gases being emitted by a person or business in a time period (usually a year). The most common standards used for conducting carbon footprints are the World Resource Institute’s Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the ISO 14064. We use these standards when conducting our carbon footprints.
Is offsetting a permit to pollute?
Definitely not! Every individual and organization has a responsibility to lower their emissions whenever possible: walking or cycling instead of driving; teleconferencing instead of flying; etc. But there are still many activities for which we do not yet have low emissions alternatives. Offsetting is just one way individuals and companies can actively contribute to climate change mitigation, in addition to the reductions they can make in their own activities.
What makes Offsetters different from other carbon offset suppliers?
We’ve been developing projects in Canada the longest and we provide the highest quality offsets. Every offset purchased from Offsetters is third-party validated and verified to be additional, real, permanent and unique.
Offsetters provides a cost-effective, simple and efficient method to reduce the negative climate impacts of our daily lives. Every offset purchase not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but also contributes to sustainable development and improved livability through the projects that we invest in.
Are your credits Gold Standard certified? In 2011. we became the first Canadian company to co-develop a Gold Standard cookstove project in Africa. You can learn more about our Household Wood Cookstoves project in Uganda at www.offsetters.ca/offset-projects. We also purchase and sell Gold Standard credits that are sourced from projects around the world.
We have a long history of developing our projects domestically, including fuel-switching projects, energy efficiency projects, and ground-source heat-pump installations. The Gold Standard certification is only available to projects in countries
without Kyoto targets, therefore our domestic projects are not eligible. Our domestic projects are developed to the Verified Carbon Standard or the BC Emissions Offset Regulation. Our domestic projects developed prior to these standards also meet these best-in-class standards.
How does Offsetters ensure that carbon credits are not double-counted?
Double counting occurs when multiple parties take credit for the environmental attribute of the carbon reductions. For example, if a company reduced their emissions and claimed that they were carbon neutral, but also sold the credits to us to sell to our clients, both the company and our clients would be claiming these emissions.
This has been a major problem in the carbon market. To address this, we keep careful track of our credits internally and register our credits on ‘registries’ such as Markit and the Gold Standard Registry. These registries track each credit that has been created and retires them once they are sold. Buyers can then check to make sure that credits they are about to buy have not already been sold or used.
