In 2009 SEB started to offset its carbon emissions. Our strategy builds upon the overall reduction of our emissions paired with compensating for our remaining emissions. Since 2009, we have offset our emissions through investments in projects according to the UN certification scheme under the Kyoto Protocol (the Clean Development Mechanism, CDM). Our ambition is for all chosen projects to meet the Gold Standard criteria, meaning that they not only generate real and verifiable carbon offsets but also bring social benefits to the communities in which they operate.
Since 2009, we have invested in three different projects.
Solar cooker in China (2009 & 2010)
The solar cooker project allows the rural population in the dry mountain area of Haiyuan County in southern Ningxia to get clean energy for their daily cooking and water boiling. This region in north western China is one of the poorest in the country. The project enables the low-income households to efficiently substitute solar energy for coal. 17,000 solar cookers are produced and sold at a reduced price, which results in a 35,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions saved each year. This was our first compensation made to neutralize our gross emission for 2009. We also made some investments in this project in 2010.
This project also makes an important contribution to the sustainable development of this region:
- It will promote the use of clean energy,
- it will educate and train the rural population on solar energy technology,
- and also build awareness in environmental protection among the rural population.
Quick facts about the Solar Cooker project:
- Project name: Federal Intertrade Haiyuan Solar Cooker Project
- Project location: China, region Ningxia Hui
- Project standard: CDM, Gold Standard
- Emission reductions: 35,000 tonnes CO2 emissions
- Situation without project: Coal consumption in households
- CO2 of the project: Providing rural residents with a clean energy for their daily cooking, improving living conditions and indoor hygiene of rural residents, and mitigating CO2 emission
Planting trees in Uchindile Mapanda, Tanzania (2010)
We invested SEK 10 million into carbon compensation in 2010, to offset our 2009 emissions of 47,320 tonnes CO2. We focused our investment into two projects: we continued to invest in the Solar Cooker project in China, but also invested into one new project aiming at reforestation of degraded land (ie. planting trees) in the Southern highlands of Tanzania (creating 36,450 tonnes of reductions). This project establishes commercial forests across the Uchindile and Mapanda districts. It is a unique project since it became the first ‘Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use’ (AFOLU) project to be validated under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS).
10 per cent of the carbon revenues from the forests are also allocated to initiatives which will benefit the local communities based on their list of priorities. This includes the construction of schools and hospitals and increased employment of teachers and doctors. During the first monitoring period, 1/1/2002 – 30/11/2008, the project verified and issued 139,358 tonnes. Of these issued tonnes, SEB purchased 36,450 credits, or in other words, just over 26% of the issued credits.
The Meru & Nanyuki reforestation project in Kenya (2011)
The majority of our CO2 emissions offsets in 2011 were made through a reforestation project in central Kenya. The project integrates reforestation to sequester carbon with community development activities targeting improved access to food and the creation of additional sources of income beyond subsistence farming. The environmental benefits include reduction of soil erosion, contribution to the improvement of the water catchments areas and enhanced biodiversity.
1 CDM is one of three mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol. All CDM projects must qualify through a rigorous and public registration and issuance process designed to ensure real, measurable and verifiable emission reductions that are additional to what would have occurred without the project. CDM projects are overseen by the UN body CDM Executive Board. For more information, visit http://cdm.unfccc.int.
2 Gold Standard is a standard defined by more than 60 non-governmental organizations worldwide (including Greenpeace International, Rainforest Alliance and WWF International). Gold Standard sets an even higher quality bar for carbon emissions reduction projects where the projects also make a measureable impact on sustainable and social development in local communities. For more information, visit http://www.cdmgoldstandard.org.