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Carbon Offsets (Purchasing “Green Tags”)Completing energy-efficiency projects and campus climate action plans can take years. And even after you have hunted down the last kilowatt and squeezed the final therm from your energy budget, fuel-switched and bought biodiesel, you may have achieved carbon neutrality - that mythic point at which your net output of carbon dioxide and equivalents like methane is zero. So, what can you do in the meantime, or to bridge the gap between where you are, carbon-wise, and zero? Purchasing renewable energy is generally the best option, but if no renewable energy is available in your market area, or if not enough is available for your campuses needs, then RECs (renewable energy credits) or so-called "Green Tags" are the interim solution, or how you get the rest of the way. It's maybe not for purists, but it is a very real way of reducing carbon pollution, and as such can be a useful element in your Campus Climate Action Plan. When electricity is generated using wind, solar, water, or other safe, clean sources, tons of carbon dioxide are avoided - not produced - in the process. By avoiding pollution, "clean" generators get "credit" for the social (improved public health) and environmental (reduced pollution) attributes of their power - measured in tons avoided. In the case of CO2, those tons are credits, in the carbon-trading scheme of things; you can, through reputable carbon trading organizations, buy those credits or "offsets" in the form or certificates or "tags." When you purchase RECs or tags, you are offsetting the CO 2 released in the generation of the actual kilowatts you used. For more in-depth explications of the intricacies of green tags, and to find out where to go to get them, visit the sites below. Resources The US Department of Energy offers a guide to green tags.
NativeEnergy, a unique model (and a CA-CP partner, for the sake of truth in advertising), offers a primer - and sells RECs.
Case Studies and Examples Colgate University purchased offsets (from NativeEnergy).
The College of the Atlantic's electricity is 100% wind-powered with RECs from NativeEnergy. |
