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TerraPass offers Green-e RECs to business customersWind power helps green companies qualify for LEED certification
Since the launch of TerraPass’ Carbon Balanced Business in January 2008, hundreds of businesses have demonstrated their commitment to the environment by balancing their emissions. The program provides partners with resources to measure their carbon footprint and a portfolio of carbon offset projects that meet the highest standards of quality. Each partner gets a Carbon Balanced Business badge to display, and a dedicated web page on the TerraPass site to discuss their green strategies. Now, in addition to its portfolio of carbon offsets, TerraPass is offering business customers Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) certified by Green-e Energy. RECs offer an easy and cost-effective way for businesses to market green power and to earn points for LEED certification. Supporting the development of wind power in the U.S. helps to displace electricity generation from coal and other fossil fuel-based sources of electricity. Buying RECs also helps to build a market for renewable energy projects by making them more cost competitive with conventional sources of energy. Are RECs a carbon offset? Wind and other renewable energy sources can be used to make claims of carbon neutrality if the project has been validated under a carbon offset standard, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) or Green-e Climate, which take into consideration whether the project is additional. Ecosystem Marketplace has a good article on the evolving distinction. Comments
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The last paragraph, 2nd sentence, seems to confuse carbon offsets with carbon reductions. I can reduce my carbon without receiving a carbon offset, or credit. The article says wind energy can claim carbon neutrality if they pass some test to prove additionality. That's only to gain a carbon offset, or credit. The wind company can still claim carbon neutrality regardless. After all, a wind project is not producing any fossil fuel based CO2 during actual generation, are they? And a user who used to buy coal-based generation can buy wind power and also claim electricity carbon neutrality, but once again, not receive a carbon offset, or credit. So carbon neutrality can legitimately be claimed by persons who neither generate a REC or carbon offset (credit).
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Well...sort of. If you install wind turbines on your home and generate all of your own electricity, you can correctly claim to be carbon neutral without needing to reference external standards or generate carbon credits.
However, if you want to give up that carbon neutrality claim and sell it to someone else -- which is in effect what wind farms do when they sell the environmental attributes of their clean energy -- then you do need to generate credits backed by some sort of standard. At least, you do if you want that carbon neutral claim to have any wider legitimacy.
Think of it like this: if you want to grow vegetables in your back yard and call them organic, no one is going to complain. If you want to sell those vegetables through Whole Foods under the organic label, you need to be concerned with the certification process.
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