New Terrapass Projects Open For Comments

Terrapass has always prided itself on transparency. Today we’re taking that one step further, and asking for your feedback on projects before we commit them to our portfolio.

We’re admittedly excited to solicit stakeholder comments on our projects: first, we believe the stakeholder process is an important tool to ensure that all information about a project is collected before deciding whether it belongs in the Terrapass portfolio. Public comments have been used in the Kyoto system to such ends, and we’re hopeful they could work well in the voluntary carbon markets as well.

Second, we believe this is an industry first. We’re excited to be leading the way among our colleagues in the voluntary carbon market, and hope that this is a sign that competition will lead to even greater transparency.

Our new comment page

To help you along, we’ve prepared a Project Information Report (PIR) on each project (for carbon-nerds, this is like a lightweight PDD). The PIR provides information on the project design, location, ancillary impacts, and why we think it is a good use of Terrapass funds.

We’re hoping for a wide variety of responses to these projects, everything from how our individual Terrapass members feel about them to policy-level questions around technical carbon credit issues to more general comments from the communities in which these projects are based.

Another Chance to Work Together on Climate Change.

Comments are open for 30 days, and we’ll be reading all comments received, digesting them (no pun intended) and recommending a path forward (or not) for each project. If you have comments on the comment period itself, send them along as well, as we’re always looking to improve.

Our goal, as always, is to provide our members with the highest-quality carbon offsets. This is just one more way that we hope to get the fullest possible set of information on each of our projects before committing to it as part of our portfolio. We look forward to hearing from you.

Finally, long time readers will know that transparency is one big difference between Terrapass and other carbon offset providers. If you have friends that are still wondering what Terrapass is all about, or you’re new to Terrapass, we’ve formally laid out how Terrapass is different from other carbon offset providers, on a new page on the site, The Terrapass Difference. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Photo available under Creative Commons license from Flickr user Simon Groenewolt

 

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