Business council bought credits from Amazon conservation project to offset emissions from travel, transportation and energy consumption
CEBDS (Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development) has just completed another offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions from its operations. The Council, which represents more than 80 Brazilian companies and approximately 50% of Brazil's GDP, offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated by its team's work operations throughout 2020, which includes travel, transportation, and energy consumption with cell phones, computers, and servers. With this, it has once again received the “Friend of the Climate” seal, granted to those who neutralize their impact on global warming.
To offset the carbon emissions, CEBDS purchased carbon credits from a conservation project in the Amazon. The Council chose an already established reserve in Pará, which promotes the reduction of deforestation and forest degradation in the city of Paragominas. The initiative prevents the felling of trees and manages the forest in accordance with one of the most important international quality standards: the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).
This is the sixth Climate Friendly seal received by CEBDS in the last two years. The Council had already offset its emissions in specific projects, such as flights to the UN Climate Conference, COP26, in Glasgow (Scotland), in November last year, as well as events held before the pandemic and the publication of materials. In total, the Council has already offset 14 tons of carbon equivalent.
According to calculations made by the consultancy Way Carbon, the CEBDS team's emissions from daily operations throughout 2020 were 2.2 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. This calculation measures how much greenhouse gas emissions the team generated through flights, transportation to meetings, events and the trip to and from the office, in addition to energy consumption by electronic equipment. The measurement is made in CO2 equivalent, the measure used worldwide and which converts the impact of all the gases that cause global warming into a single measure.
The calculation refers to the year 2020, so emissions were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in fewer trips, but the calculation includes the impact generated by working from home (home office).
CEBDS even offset more emissions than it actually produced, as it purchased 3 tons of credits for an impact of 2.2 tons of CO2e. With this, the money transferred to the project in the Amazon will help keep the forest standing, preventing trees from being cut down by fires or illegal deforestation, for example.
This is yet another initiative by CEBDS to reduce its impact on climate change and neutralize so-called carbon emissions. The Council has also been promoting a series of improvements in its operations to further reduce emissions, such as adopting a hybrid work format, without the need to travel to the office every day; replacing computers with newer, more efficient equipment; giving preference to virtual meetings; replacing physical servers with a cloud storage system; and encouraging carpooling schemes.
