Recent news
May 2011
Envirotrade Sofala Community Carbon Project first to be validated CCBA ‘Triple Gold’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Open Request for Bids for Plan Vivo / CCBA Gold Carbon Credits
London – May 27, 2011 – Envirotrade Carbon Limited announces that its Sofala Community Carbon Project in central Mozambique is the first project to be validated under the Second Edition of the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) standard at the Gold level in all three evaluation areas of Climate, Community and Biodiversity. The project CCB validation, which was performed by the Rainforest Alliance, demonstrated “exceptional benefits” in climate change mitigation, community engagement and biodiversity preservation in order to achieve its Gold level certification in all three areas. Envirotrade would like to thank all project participants and other stakeholders for their hard work and support in making this achievement possible.
In order to generate cash for the remaining seven years of the Sofala project, and so that Envirotrade may focus on the application of its proven project model to new, larger projects in Africa, the company is issuing a public request for bids for the remaining unsold and unallocated CCBA Gold carbon credits generated by the Sofala project. Further information about the Plan Vivo / CCBA Gold credits available for purchase and the bidding process is available on the company’s website at www.envirotrade.co.uk/html/sofalatender.php.
Envirotrade is being advised in this public request for bids by Baker & McKenzie and CarbonShift. PwC provided forest carbon project development support and assistance in the development of Envirotrade’s carbon market strategy.
Media Contact:
Charles J Hall, Chief Executive, Envirotrade Group
+44 797 057 0196
About Envirotrade Carbon Limited
Envirotrade Carbon Limited is a Mauritius-based leading developer of community-based Agroforestry and forest protection (REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) carbon projects in sub-Saharan Africa. The company, which with its operating subsidiaries trades as Envirotrade Group, was created to bring market solutions to the challenges of poverty alleviation, climate change mitigation/adaptation and biodiversity preservation. Envirotrade’s pilot project in Sofala province, Mozambique, was initiated in 2002 in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and successfully completed a grant from the European Commission which provided financial support from 2003 until 2008. The Sofala project since 2008 has been funded by ongoing carbon offset sales and subsidies from Envirotrade.
Envirotrade is currently engaged in the development of new large-scale REDD+ and Agroforestry projects in which the company will work with local communities to protect individual blocks of at least 100,000 hectares of old-growth tropical forest. Envirotrade’s vision is to bring its proven market-based community project model to bear in protecting over 1 million hectares of severely threatened old-growth tropical forests in the next 5 years.
About Baker & McKenzie
Founded in 1949, Baker & McKenzie advises many of the world’s most dynamic and successful business organisations through more than 3,750 locally qualified lawyers and over 5,700 professional staff in 68 offices in 40 countries. Baker & McKenzie is known for having a deep understanding of the language and culture of business, an uncompromising commitment to excellence, and world-class fluency in its client service. Baker & McKenzie’s global revenues for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2010, were US$2.104 billion. Eduardo Leite is Chairman of the Firm’s Executive Committee. (www.bakermckenzie.com)
Baker & McKenzie's Global Environmental Markets Practice
Baker & McKenzie was the first law firm to recognise the importance of global efforts to address climate change and the importance of such legal developments to our clients. For more than 12 years, our dedicated team of over 60 lawyers have worked on numerous pioneering deals, including writing the first carbon contracts, setting up the first carbon funds and advising on the first structured carbon derivative transactions. We continue to be the adviser of choice on market developments advising on the first REDD project, post-2012 carbon funds and legal regimes around carbon capture and storage. Our leadership and depth are represented in the market leading publications we have been asked to draft, including the CDM and JI Rulebooks (www.cdmrulebook.org and www.jirulebook.org respectively), as well as the Emissions Trading and New Energy Global Law Guide, the world's first online subscription service on emissions trading and new energy law. Leading legal directory, Chambers Global ranked our practice as number one for the last three years running.
About PwC
PwC has a network of more than 200 climate change and carbon market specialists covering all the major Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) countries and developed country carbon markets. The group combines transaction advisory skills, regulation, economics, and deep industry expertise. PwC works with both buyers and sellers of carbon credits in all the main carbon markets, providing transaction, CDM development and valuation services, including financial advice, tax structuring and carbon due diligence. PwC is a leading adviser on the CDM and voluntary carbon market projects and helps clients to assess climate change risks and opportunities in corporate mergers and acquisitions.
May 2011
Forestry Key to Africa’s Carbon Permit Market, Envirotrade Says
Conserving forests as a means for countries to meet climate change targets is crucial to Africa’s participation in the world’s carbon markets, said Envirotrade Carbon Ltd.
The London-based company is investing about $2.8 million to develop a project in Mozambique’s Quirimbas National Park that will protect 125,000 hectares (480 square miles) of coastal forest and mangroves from deforestation.
By doing so, Envirotrade will sequester up to 10 million metric tons of CO2 over 20 years, said Chief Executive Charles Hall in a May 17 interview. Trees absorb carbon dioxide for growth and release it when they rot or burn.
Carbon credits linked to deforestation, rather than tree planting, were excluded from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and aren’t covered in Europe’s emissions trading program.
About 200 nations will meet in Durban, South Africa, in December for the United Nation’s climate talks to look at ways of creating carbon forestry credits, which may be part of a new treaty.
‘The inclusion of forestry and land-use activities in the compliance regime post-Kyoto is crucial to Africa,’ said Hall on the phone from London. ‘So far, African participation in the Clean Development Mechanism has been tiny, less than 2 percent.’
CDM Projects
Currently only 25 CDM projects are registered in Africa, two-thirds of them in South Africa, the United Nations Development Program said.
‘Unless and until the UN compliance carbon framework allows forestry and land-use to participate, Africa will never participate in those schemes anywhere near to the extent that it should,’ Hall said.
Instead, the company will be restricted to selling its forestry credits on the global $186 million voluntary carbon market, which relies on purchases from companies and individuals for purposes other than meeting Kyoto or European Union regulatory targets.
Envirotrade plans to register the Quirimbas project with the Washington-based Verified Carbon Standard program, or VCS, toward the end of the year, Hall said.
‘We’ve now got a method to produce REDD credits from VCS,’ said Hall. Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, known as REDD, was only recognized by the voluntary market as a means of offsetting emissions in November, he said. Until then the only forestry credits one could generate were through reforestation projects.
Nature Reserve
The Quirimbas project is an expansion of a 10,000 hectare pilot initiative started in 2002 in Mozambique’s Gorongosa nature reserve. The Sofala Community Carbon Project, as it is known, received a 2 million euro grant from the EU and has generated 1.2 million tons of carbon credits, of which one fifth have been sold, Hall said.
The offsets have been bought by companies such as Max Hamburgerrestauranger AB, Sweden’s oldest hamburger chain, Arla Foods AB, the Danish food manufacturing company, and the Creative Artists Foundation, one of Hollywood’s top talent agencies.
Envirotrade signed contracts with about 3,000 farmers to change the way they used their land, paying them money from the sale of the carbon credits to get them to plant trees, including cashew and mango, alongside their fields to boost their crop yield.
‘Slash and Burn’
‘In those kinds of environments you cannot succeed in protecting forests without engaging with the local communities to wean them away from slash and burn techniques that they’ve used for centuries,’ said Hall.
By improving food security and introducing potential cash crops to the area, the project addresses a key driver of deforestation and reduces pressure on the forests, the company said in a statement.
Deforestation represents a major challenge to resolving climate change, contributing more to carbon emissions than fossil fuel consumption does, said Mark Heaton, Envirotrade’s country manager for South Africa. ‘It’s a significant motivating factor to get forestry included’ in the EU carbon trading scheme, he said.
Global forests contain an estimated 638 gigatons of carbon, more than all the carbon in the earth’s atmosphere, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said on its website. One gigaton is a billion tons.
June 2009
New African – How Africa can earn billions from carbon trading
Download the article (2.05MB pdf)
April 2009
The Sunday Times Magazine – The Green Shoots of Hope
The Sunday Times Magazine journalist Richard Girling, who visited and wrote about the Nhambita Project in 2005, has recently returned to the project and written about the changes he has seen. He was accompanied by Bénédicte Kurzen, an award winning photo-journalist who has illustrated the feature which investigates grass-roots aid to Africa.
The Sunday Times Magazine will carry the article on Sunday 12 April 2009.
Richard Girling
is a senior feature writer for the Sunday Times Magazine. Voted Journalist of the Year in the 2008 Press Gazette Environmental Press Awards, he has also been Specialist Writer of the Year at the UK Press Awards (2002) and has been shortlisted for this award in 2005 and 2006. He has been a consultant to the former Department of the Environment and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and author of campaigns for the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).
(From Random Books)
Bénédicte Kurzen
is a French photographer currently living in South Africa. At the age of 23, she left Paris for Israel/Palestine. She has been a photographer since then, covering the news in the Middle East from Jerusalem to Charm El Sheick and from Beirut to Baghdad, until recently. Freelance but represented by World Picture News, her work has been seen in Paris Match, Newsweek, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Times of London, and Courrier International.
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Registered UK branch address:
Envirotrade
253 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1X 8QT
United Kingdom
