Archive for March, 2006

GHGm at GLOBE 2006

Published at March 23, 2006 in Events and GHGm. Closed

GHGm (Greenhouse Gas Measurement) is pleased to announce that we will be at GLOBE 2006 next week, the 9th Biennial Trade Fair and Conference on Business and the Environment at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre.

If you are in Vancouver, please drop by Booth #411 in the Climate Change Solutions pavilion for a chat – and pick up one of our “magic rulers” used for GHG quantification!

Dr Young, President of GHGm, will also be presenting at the ETV (Environmental Technology Verification) Forum 2006 on March 28, 2006 at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel.

Business value of ISO 14064 standards

Published at March 12, 2006 in GHG Validation & Verification, GHG standards and GHG measurement. Closed

The recent publication of the ISO 14064 standards for greenhouse gas quantification and verification, prompts the question of their business value.

What are some benefits?

From an ISO press release: ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden says:

Claims made about reductions of the greenhouse gas emissions widely held responsible for climate change may have political and financial implications, in addition to environmental and technical ones. Ensuring their credibility is thus vital.

Let’s break it down and consider what may be potential benefits if and when these standards are widely adopted — with particular consideration of the ISO 14064-2:2006 standard for projects .

- The ISO label presents a standard of integrity: integrity that includes technical, environmental and ultimately financial.

- ISO 14064 supports a commonality of terminology, baseline and other procedures, monitoring, reporting and documentation. If the standard is used across different schemes, we should be able to “cut-and-paste” pieces from one project document into another project that is in a different jurisdiction, sector, or region. We believe it would be greatly beneficial to have commonality from CDM to Canada to Europe to Japan and beyond.

- ‘64 should be used to streamline process costs, including document development, validation and verification. Will we soon see DOE’s advocating the use of ISO 14064-2 for CDM projects? The logic and layout is more auditable than a PDD.

- ISO’s efforts support an open market for carbon credits. If they all use the same basis, we would think that fungibility would be significantly promoted.

At what cost?

We see the cost of “doing 64″ to be more than paid back by the benefits outlined above. Only an investment in time will be required to understand the new document, its terms and logic — and of course the price of purchasing the documents.

Keen GHG project interest, growing capacity in India

Published at March 10, 2006 in Clean Technology, India, Events, Carbon credits and GHGm. Closed

Greenhouse gas and clean technology projects are thriving in India, largely due to a capable and growing support infrastructure of engineers, consultants, business and legal advisors. This is one observation from Dr. Steven B. Young, GHGm President, who participated in the “India and Canada GHG Reduction and Emerging Technology Seminars,” held March 7 in Mumbai and March 9 in New Delhi, India.

Canadian and Indian experts presented to more than 200 participants across the two days. Dr. Young spoke on the practical application of the ISO 14064-2 standard on GHG quantification of projects. He highlighted his presentation with reference to two project assessments prepared by GHGm: the Canadian Biobus Montreal project completed in 2003 and the newly announced ATFCAN project “CNG India.” This exciting Indian clean energy project was announced on March 9 in Delhi, and includes partnerships with Maruti Udyog Limited (Maruti) of India and Tata Motors of India.

The talks generated keen feedback from Indian participants, with particular attention from consultants, engineers, financial and other service providers. Capacity for GHG quantification in India is growing rapidly, based on a significant Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market in the country. Interest in ISO 14064 focused on awareness, building capacity and determining business value of the standards.

The events were organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Canada’s Technology Early Action Measures (TEAM) program and Industry Canada.

Life Cycle Assessment training for agriculture

Published at March 4, 2006 in Agriculture, Events and Life cycle assessment (LCA). Closed

March 2-3, 2006

GHGm successfully delivered a two day training workshop on life cycle assessment (LCA). Dr. Lindita Bushi, supported by Dr. Goretty Dias, instructed Canadian agriculture experts on the framework, methodology and standards for LCA. The focus of the training was on the SimaPro 6 software, which has recently been purchased by Agriculture and Agri-foods Canada (AAFC) for the Environmental Technology Assessment for Agriculture (ETAA) program.

LCA case studies highlighted in the training (and under the ETAA program) includes an Ontario poultry pyrolosis renewable energy technology and a novel blueberry management and production operation in Nova Scotia.