Green-e Climate Certifies The CarbonNeutral Company's Renewable Energy-Based Carbon Offsets

International carbon management business The CarbonNeutral Company offers Green-e Climate Certified offsets from Chinese renewable energy project

Contact Jeff Swenerton Communications Director Center for Resource Solutions 415-561-2119 jeff@resource-solutions.org

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 2, 2009)—Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) today announced that Green-e® Climate, the nation's leading certification and verification program for retail greenhouse gas emission reduction (carbon offset) products, has certified "The CarbonNeutral Company Offset (China)" product, sourced from clean energy from a hydropower station in Yunnan Province, China. The CarbonNeutral Company is the first international provider of Green-e Climate Certified offsets, and the company's offset product has met or exceeded Green-e Climate's strict standards for project verification and measurement, consumer transparency, and truth-in-marketing claims. The CarbonNeutral Company has now been granted the use of the Green-e Climate Certified logo.

"We are pleased The CarbonNeutral Company can now offer its customers an offset product certified by Green-e Climate," said Jane Valentino, manager of Green-e Climate. "These offsets are sourced from international renewable energy projects that have met some of the highest standards in the industry, and combined with the company's commitment to transparency and quality, are an excellent choice for consumers who want to offset their contribution to climate change by supporting clean energy projects that wouldn't have otherwise been built."

The offsets are sourced from renewable energy projects certified by the Voluntary Carbon Standard, an independent nonprofit organization registered under Swiss law. By purchasing these offsets, business and consumers will aid the development of new renewable resources that wouldn't have otherwise been built, leading to a reduction in the rise of emissions from fossil-fuel electricity generation worldwide.

Green-e Climate is a consumer-protection program requiring greenhouse gas emission reductions to be verified according to strict project-level certification programs that ensure the reductions have taken place, are permanent, and come from projects that would not have happened under a "business as usual" scenario. Sellers of certified offsets must provide customers with a product content label that explains where the reductions were sourced from, including the locations and types of projects. Sellers must also undergo a yearly audit to ensure their supply of offsets matches their sales, and comply with Green-e Climate's consumer disclosure and truth in advertising requirements.

About Green-e Climate and Center for Resource Solutions
Green-e Climate is the nation's first certification program for greenhouse gas emission reductions sold to consumers on the retail market. This consumer-protection program strengthens the voluntary market by providing credible oversight of and transparency to retail offset products. Green-e Climate is a program of Center for Resource Solutions, a nonprofit that creates policy and market solutions to advance sustainable energy. Learn more about Green-e Climate at www.green-e.org/climate.

About The CarbonNeutral Company
The CarbonNeutral Company (www.carbonneutral.com) is a world leading carbon offset and carbon management business, working with over 300 major businesses and thousands of small and medium sized companies. Over the last ten years, it has purchased carbon credits from over 200 projects across six continents.

CarbonNeutral® is the registered trademark of The CarbonNeutral Company and is the leading brand mark and quality standard for action on climate change. Permission to display the CarbonNeutral mark is only given to clients when CO2 emissions have been measured and reduced to net zero through a program implemented in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol. This Protocol assures quality of offset projects, carbon footprint assessments and communication and is regularly reviewed by an Independent Advisory Group. The "audit trail" includes an annual independent verification of CarbonNeutral programs-from contracts with carbon offset partners through to contracts with clients and everything in between.

The CarbonNeutral Company has two regional operating headquarters in New York and London, as well as an office in Singapore, and a network of affiliates in Japan, Canada, France and UAE. The CarbonNeutral Company is a founding member of The International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA), which provides leadership and a unified voice advocating for rigorous industry standards www.icroa.org.

 

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