II. What will be counted?

Projects promoted by Carbon Plus will have real environmental benefits and will represent new and additional investment towards GHG mitigation and sustainable development sound projects. Although the term “sustainable development” is open to many different interpretations, we will focus on the recognized core principles such as environmental protection, social advancement, human rights and economic development.

A dual consideration based on cost effectiveness analysis and on co-benefits evaluation will be enhanced to create a so-called triple bottom line assessment.

1- Cost-effectiveness
Based on the World Bank Operations Evaluation Department, we will develop the cost effectiveness analysis on the following criterion:

• Financial or other resource savings, and increased revenue;
• Increased income and employment for the target population;
• Improved utilization of public funds;
• Improved quality of services; and
• Integrating economic and social concerns into development policies.

2- Co-benefits
The co-benefits evaluation will consider differentiated criteria such as the one developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) :
The most widely known approach done to establish relevant corporate social issues in broad terms is the so-called ‘triple bottom line’, where companies report on economic, environmental and social matters as well as the usual financial issues.
During the past decade, reporting on non-financial indicators (‘sustainability reporting’) has seen tremendous growth, greatly supported by programs such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
Therefore the GRI in our view is a good starting point for the identification of the relevant issues for sectors, industries, individual firms and in our case, micro-scale projects.
The key issues-indicators in the GRI framework can be summarized as following:
• Economic (customers, suppliers, employees, providers of capital, public sector)
• Environmental (materials, energy, water, biodiversity, emissions, effluents and waste, suppliers, products and services, compliance, transport, overall)
• Social Performance: Labor Practices & Decent Work (employment, labor/management relations, health and safety, training and education, diversity and opportunity)
• Social Performance: Human Rights (strategy and management, non-discrimination, freedom of association and collective bargaining, child labor, forced and compulsory labor, disciplinary practices, security practices, indigenous rights )
• Social Performance: Society (community, bribery and corruption, political contributions, competition and pricing)
• Social Performance: Product Responsibility (customer health and safety, products and services, advertising, respect for privacy)

Then, for a deeper understanding, a throughout analysis can be assessed with a more detailed data collection. Carbon Plus would merge different criteria listed by the Gold Standard’s Manual For Project Developers on Voluntary emission reductions (VERs) with the GRI indicators. Therefore the following indicators could be used in the assessment of sustainable development:

• Local/global environmental sustainability, including indicators such as a water quantity and water quality, air quality, other pollutants, soil condition, contribution to biodiversity
• Social sustainability and development, including indicators such as quality of employment, livelihoods of the poor, poverty alleviation, access to essential services, access to affordable clean energy services, human capacity such as empowerment, education/skills and gender equality.
• Economic and technological development, including indicators such as number of employment, sustainability of the balance of payments, and hard currency expenditures on technology, replicabitlity and contribution to technological self-reliance.

Although the economic criterion is already assessed in our cost-effectiveness analysis, it could be interesting to perform a comparison, for the three above-mentioned methodologies, related to the economic impact of the micro-scale projects promoted under the Carbon Plus umbrella.

Finally, to comprehend development goals more specifically related to climate security, justice and ethics, we will consider the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in our methodology. The MDG were drawn from the Millennium Declaration signed by 147 heads of states and governments in September 2000. They are divided in eight quantifiable targets for “diminishing global poverty and achieving major advances in health, education, environment and equality by 2015”:
- Eradicate poverty and hunger
- Achieve primary education
- Promote gender equality
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS and malaria
- Ensure a sustainable environment
- Global cooperation

Assessing those targets will allow us to identify proper indicators to develop an over-all accounting methodology to link issues related to sustainable development and climate change; therefore building a comprehensive tool to evaluate projects on their effectiveness to address issues related to climate security, ethics and justice.

3- Data methodology ideas:

Data specifications exist for a number of assessment areas. The Best Foot Forward existing data specification and collection (bff_data_specification-v22) could be considered as a starting table for us, an ad hoc data specification would be created for each project.
The following objectives would be taken into consideration to assess the sustainable development goal of the projects:
− Waste and recycling
− Use of resources
− Purchasing
− Transport
− Pollution prevention
− Raising awareness and advice

4- Existing example

The Social CarbonTM example :

“The core of Social CarbonTM methodology is a set of diagnostic assessments of communities affected by emission reduction projects, and of the projects themselves. These are carried out at the beginning of the project to provide a baseline (Point Zero), and repeated over time to provide a moving picture of the contribution to sustainable development.”

In order to illustrate their approach, the Social CarbonTM uses a hexagon diagram, where each corner represents one of six resources that can be assessed in a community, according to the six Methodology Resources: carbon, biodiversity, social, financial, human and natural.

By using a diagram, their methodology illustrative results are shown from the “Point Zero” baseline and the first three annual diagnostic assessments of a project or community. “As the plotted shape moves towards the outer boundary of the hexagon, it is an indication that access to resources is improving, and therefore that sustainability is increasing.”

Source: Social CarbonTM

The credibility of the Social CarbonTM is enhanced by the fact that all the projects are validated by an independent third party (as well as their verified VER’s).

“The third party must be a Designated Operational Entity (DOE), accredited by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).” The Social CarbonTM appoints these bodies to ensure that the principles of Social CarbonTM are correctly applied, using the Social Carbon Guidelines drawn up by Ecológica Institute.
Those Social Carbon Guidelines can be applied to different types of projects whether they are connected to energetic efficiency, renewable energy or in the forestation area, through the use and monitoring of the six Methodology Resources.

To download the “CARBONplus Accounting” document, please click on the link below:

carbon-plus-accounting