Reduce carbon
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How we offset carbon emissionsCarbon Credits: New Zealand Household Energy Efficient Lighting Projects (HELP)Project Summary: The HELP project was implemented by Energy Mad Limited. Energy Mad is a New Zealand based company with a mandate to reduce enough electricity to power Europe. In rolling out the project, Energy Mad partnered with electricity network utilities and retailer outlets throughout New Zealand to offer consumers five Ecobulbs for $10.00, using a voucher redemption process. The installation of these Ecobulbs in the place of incandescent lamps leads to a direct reduction in fossil fuel electricity generation. Energy Mad engaged United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change appointed Designated Operational Entity, Det Norske Veritas Certification, to carry out the independent validation of the HELP design. The New Zealand HELP achieved independent validation on 16 January 2008 to Voluntary Carbon Standard 2007. Validation against this standard ensures that the project meets all of CRI’s carbon credit standards; including financial additionality, environmental additionality, permanence and assessment of leakage. This gives a promise to our clients that the greenhouse savings from these credits have occurred. To read our assessment of these credits against our criterias of financial additionality, environmental additionality, permanence, leakage and other benefits download our document CRI Assessment of HELP VERs.  Why we Prefer Energy Efficiency Credits
We always try and source energy efficiency credits if we can (subject to market availability). This is because a large part of our global warming problems extend from the fact that we use too much electricity from dirty sources. The problem is made much worse by the fact that energy usage is growing at massive rates as factories and production lines in China and India come on line to meet the growing consumption patterns of the western world, and that these factories need cheap (which nearly always means dirty) power sources to run. It is commonly said that to solve the problem, that all we need to do is substitute dirty energy for clean sources. This is not true and provides false hope, as clean energy sources have finite generating capacity and cost more, therefore it is wrong to think that they will come online and solve all our problems, as the costs are too high and the energy growth rate is too large. This is why we support energy efficiency projects, particularly those at the household level. These projects create emission reductions by reducing the fossil fuel energy generation and provide direct educational and awareness benefits straight to energy users about actions that they can take in their own lives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is the key point; anyone can be more energy efficient. Renewable energy credits don’t empower people in the same way, in that a wind turbine or a solar panel is beyond the reach of many people. By providing the eco-bulb credits, we are lowering total energy consumption and cushioning the transition to a renewable energy future as well as supporting projects that educate people about ways they can meaningfully respond to climate change. Want to help us??
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Carbon offsets & credits
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