SÃO PAULO, Brazil - The Social Carbon Company (SCC), today announced that 206,178 tonnes of Brazilian originated greenhouse gas (GHG) credits have been successfully delivered to the World Bank Group. This is one of the largest transactions of such credits to date. 

The emission reductions were generated from renewable biomass projects managed by the Social Carbon Company in eight Brazilian producing plants. A total of 206,178 tonnes of Verified Carbon Units (VCUs) have been successfully verified, coming from fuel switching projects located in Southeast, North and Northeast Brazil.

The projects reduce GHG emissions by substituting native wood and fossil fuel with a mix of renewable biomasses, such as sugar cane bagasse, renewable sawdust, açaí pits, rice husk, and other residual biomass to generate thermal energy in industrial processes.

“It speaks volumes that the World Bank Group selected these particular credits from the millions of tonnes offered to and evaluated by them. The World Bank Group has set an example that other multi-national private and governmental entities can be expected to emulate”   -CantorCO2e co-CEO Josh Margolis.

The projects have been developed with VCS 2007.1 standard (Voluntary Carbon Standard www.v-c-s.org ) associated with the SOCIALCARBON® methodology. The projects and their related credits have been validated and verified by an independent third party, the D.O.E. TUV NORD from Germany and monitoring is carried out by the developer team. 

Robert Pulley, Director of General Services at the World Bank said, “We at the World Bank Group are working to reduce our environmental footprint by managing energy, water, waste and procurement practices. In 2006 we committed to offsetting those emissions that we cannot reduce ourselves, by investing in emission reduction credits generated by projects in developing countries. These SOCIALCARBON® credits also meet our desire to provide social benefits to local communities.” 

Stefano Merlin, CEO of The Social Carbon Company said, “These emission reduction projects benefit small scale local producers and help these companies to be sustainable from the energy, environmental and social perspective. Bringing small scale carbon projects to the market is a very important achievement and is a fundamental innovation in the carbon market,” continued Mr. Merlin. “We are very excited with the possibility of replicating projects that deliver emission reductions and important socio-environmental benefits to the marketplace”, concluded Mr. Merlin. 

“CantorCO2e is pleased to have played a role bringing these parties together and facilitating the transaction” said CantorCO2e co-CEO Josh Margolis. 

David Antonioli, CEO of the VCS said, “These credits are absolutely fantastic, and really serve to underscore how the VCS and the SOCIALCARBON® methodology complement each other. We are delighted that the World Bank has recognized the importance of making sure that they purchase high quality emission reductions, and that they have gone a step beyond carbon to ensure that their investments have a lasting and positive impact on the social fabric that hosted them.” 

For more information, visit the Carbon Finance Unit of the World Bank.

For More Information: Business Wire