The practice of carbon offsetting as a means to lightening the impact of global warming on our earth is picking up steam. From carbon labels on suits and chips, to ways you can offset your wedding – Carbon Catalog hopes that carbon offsetting is well on its way to being a mainstream practice, like recycling bottles.

True to our mission, Carbon Catalog is here to help people find the most effective means for carbon offsetting and fighting global warming. When given a choice, where should you put your carbon offset money? Should you take the “noble” route and support non-profit carbon offset providers? Or are offset providers who operate for-profit better suited to make an impact on your behalf?

The question’s a difficult one and with the gracious help of the organizations and companies we’ve been talking to, you might find the answers you need in our ongoing series of interviews.

Over the last several months, Carbon Catalog’s talked with both non-profit and for-profit carbon offset providers. Earlier in the for-profit series, we’ve talked with Canada’s ZeroGHG, America’s TerraPass, and Belgium’s Climact.

Today we speak with Climate Friendly from Australia, a for-profit provider that is a “profit-for-purpose.” The term, explains Climate Friendly’s communications coordinator Jessica Miller, “acknowledges that in order to make a real carbon emissions reduction,” she says, “our business model has to also be sustainable…”

“A major difference between us and an NGO,” explains Miller, “is the capacity to deliver major emissions cuts quickly - because we are not tied to donor funding we are able to act more quickly and focus less on campaigning and advocacy, where our NGO friends are expert!”

Now for the interview with Climate Friendly:

What is your company’s favorite offset project and why?

You’re asking us to choose!…We love our Australian GreenPower projects because they are working to cut emissions here at home, and mean that the air we breathe is cleaner. However we also recognise how special the Jaisalmer & Hebei wind farms are given the massive scale of the energy crisis, and need for renewables in China and India.

Tell us about environmental heroes your staff admire.

I really admire everyday heroes, the ones that stand aside from the limelight but have made environmentally thoughtful decision-making part of their lifestyle and way of being. At Climate Friendly, this means pretty much every individual that logs-on and does their footprint and offsets along with a whole load of other great lifestyle choices.

I also look to my activist friends who are with Friends of the Earth here in Sydney as people who I find courageous, inspiring and committed and a group I have fun with, learn from and can discuss issues with.

Most of the staff at Climate Friendly all agree that Kylie Kwong is also another pretty exceptional all-round heroine, she works for both Fair Trade and environmental solutions - a great approach to sustainability.

How much did your company offset last year?

We won’t know until the end of this financial year, however through our web sales alone we have offset almost 57,000 tonnes. We will let you know the figure as soon as it becomes available.

Some companies invest directly in carbon offset projects, without using the services of a provider such as yourselves. What value does your company provide, in its role as an intermediary?

The intermediary role for us provides great quality-assurance and accountability, we are go through a rigorous process of independent verification to ensure that credits are accounted for properly (i.e. no double counting), to the highest standard (renewable) and are retired once purchased.

Based in Australia that puts you in a good strategic location to work with the Far East. We noticed information in Japanese on your website. Are you attracting offsetters from Japan and China?

We’ve had interest from Japan and China, particularly through the WWF Climate Savers program. WWF International have done some really fabulous work through this initiative to encourage major emitters to take action, we really support this and providing information on the web in Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish, for us, means making climate change solutions more accessible.

It looks like you are selling yourself as an international company. Who are your main competitors in that market? In Australia?

We’ve always fielded enquiries from people living in different countries, particularly in Europe, Canada, UK and Asia. We recognize that the effects of climate change don’t discriminate so our approach to emissions reduction we believe, ought to be global in focus and we are consistently increasing our capacity to address this.

We invite competition and new ideas into the market as a means to learning, improving standards, best practice and providing as many people, businesses and corporations as possible the opportunity to become educated and become active to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Based on offsets sold online, who are the top 5 buyers? (ranked by country)

For us, Australians are the top buyers. Followed by Canadians, Dutch and English individuals. The majority of our online sales come from people wanting to switch to GreenPower and deal with their flights. Interestingly, retail packages are on the rise - Climate Friendly Wedding Packages are becoming increasingly popular.

What resources is your company using to learn more about offsets?

Human resources - we invest a lot of time and effort into research and keeping up to date on the latest information and innovation. We have just increased our technical team by three-fold which will also provide us with more brainpower to keep on top of a rapidly moving field.

What motivated your company’s founders? Profit or the environment? What is their background?

ENVIRONMENT. We consider ourselves ‘profit-for-purpose,’ the term acknowledges that in order to make real carbon emission reduction that our business model has to also be sustainable. Our founding chairman, Joel Fleming began the business as a new father living in Byron Bay. He built one of Australia’s most sustainable homes and was motivated to use his expertise in software modeling and background in environmental science to come up with a business model that worked to support clean energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

In running your business, how do you strike a balance between achieving environmental goals, and making a profit for your shareholders?

For us achieving environmental goals is synonymous with making a profit. Our business is based on integrity and key stakeholders come to us expecting that we live up to our project principles. Without achieving rapid greenhouse gas reductions we would cease to be profitable.

Considering the additional tax advantages that non-profit providers can give their customers, do you believe you can compete in the long term?

In Australia there are few non-profit organisations that have been able to adopt project principles as stringent as ours. A major difference between us and an NGO is the capacity to deliver major emissions cuts quickly - because we are not tied to donor funding we are able to act more quickly and focus less on campaigning and advocacy, where our NGO friends are expert!

How do you feel about possible stringent cap-and-trade regulations, or a carbon tax? Do you think this would affect your business?

We welcome and encourage any government regulation and tax that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and supports the rapid transition to renewable energy. We would hope that any regulation was well thought out, consultative and implemented yesterday.

The voluntary carbon market is experiencing a lot of growth, but there is also an increasing amount of competition. From your sense of the marketplace, do you think there is room for more players, or do you expect consolidation?

Not sure what you mean by consolidation, but I think that for us a diverse and vibrant voluntary carbon market is a good thing.

One of the oft-cited reasons for being a company is the ability to raise money from investors. Has your company raised any funds, and if so, can you give some indication of how much, and from which sources?

Our major investor is Macquarie Bank Capital Group. They have injected equity into the company so that we can continue to increase capacity, though they have taken a very stand-off approach when it comes to the day-to-day operation of the business.

What do you think motivates your corporate customers to voluntarily buy carbon offsets? Are their customers demanding it?

There are a variety of reasons depending on company size, sector, management, growth potential etc. I would like to believe that deep down all corporates are benevolent environmentalists at heart and that they have been grossly misrepresented by the media and history…but I have my doubts.

Reasons I think could include:

• change management/risk analysis reasons
• genuinely caring
• anticipation of regulation
• marketing, PR and comms opportunities
• effective change agents within the company

Most indicators suggest we’re at the start of a recession, or at the very least a slowdown in growth. How do you think this will affect the carbon business? Are you seeing any changes already?

Firstly, I’m no financial expert. I think that recessions force people to be more efficient with energy overall which is good for the environment. Depending on where policy goes, it appears that carbon markets for the time being seem relatively stable compared to the stock exchange - so perhaps it will affect growth in a positive way.

Thank you Climate Friendly.