For the past four years, we’ve supported the Gold Standard certified climate projects, as part our sustainability policy in Zero Waste City.
For 2020, it was the Cleaner, Safer Water in Cambodia.
For 2021, it was the Nicaforest High Impact Reforestation Program.
See article: https://zerowastecity.com/we-support-the-nicaforest-high-impact-reforestation-program/
For 2022 and 2023, it was Planting Biodiverse Forests in Panama.
See articles:
This year, we are investing in the Uganda Gender Responsive Safe Water Project to offset our contribution to greenhouse gases emissions.
What is the Uganda Gender Responsive Safe Water Project?
In Lango, access to safe water is a major challenge; boreholes to access groundwater often fall into disrepair due to a lack of funding or training for their maintenance. Having no safe water access forces communities to use unsafe sources such as streams to get their water – water from streams has to be boiled to make it safe. To boil the water, communities collect and burn firewood, which places greater pressure on dwindling forests and produces CO2 emissions. It also creates a burden for women and children, who typically spend hours every day collecting firewood and water. Even so, boiling water does not always guarantee that it is safe to drink, so waterborne diseases continue to afflict the community.
The first ever Gold Standard-certified gender responsive credits have been created by the Lango Safe Water Project. ‘Gender Responsive’ projects take a pro-active approach to promoting and implementing gender equality practices in the community where the project is based. This gives purchasers of carbon credits the opportunity to support a project that proactively support gender equality.
Engage your organisation in the fight for climate change by offsetting your carbon emissions. Find out the projects you would like to support here: https://marketplace.goldstandard.org/collections/projects
What is a carbon offset?
A carbon offset refers to any activity that compensates for the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) or other greenhouse gases (measured in carbon dioxide equivalents [CO2e]) by providing for an emission reduction elsewhere. Because greenhouse gases are widespread in Earth’s atmosphere, the climate benefits from emission reductions regardless of where such cutbacks occur. If carbon reductions are equivalent to the total carbon footprint of an activity, then the activity is said to be “carbon neutral.” Carbon offsets can be bought, sold, or traded as part of a carbon market. [1]
How do we impact climate change?
ZWC helps businesses reduce their greenhouse gas emissions; however, we also contribute to them, via:
- The use of computers and IT infrastructure.
- Transportation (using taxi, public transport, ferries, and airplane flights)
- Electricity for air conditioning and so on.
With a series of calculations and estimations, we can estimate the total carbon emissions associated with our activity during the last financial year to be 12 tonnes.
What is Gold Standard?
Gold Standard [2] was established in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs to ensure projects that reduced carbon emissions featured the highest levels of environmental integrity and contributed to sustainable development. With the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, Gold Standard launched a best practice standard for climate and sustainable development interventions – Gold Standard for the Global Goals – to maximise impact, creating value for people around the world and the planet we share.
[1] Carbon offset, https://www.britannica.com/technology/carbon-offset
[2] Gold Standard official website, https://www.goldstandard.org/about-us/vision-and-mission