The German Government, through its Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit) has recently announced the result of a new tender aiming at offsetting the unavoidable carbon emissions produced by all business trips (service vehicles and air travel) of the federal government in 2017. Since the initial purchase in 2016, it is the fifth time in three years that UPM’s high-quality Gold Standard (GS) CDM Sichuan Household Biogas PoA is selected to contribute to a share of the offset.

Started in 2015, the programme aims at offsetting the climate impact of federal government’s employees’ business trips (road travel and flights) for the legislature 2014-2017. For 2017, the total amount of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions generated has risen to a total of 298,040 tCO2e, including for the first time all federal agencies part of the sustainability programme of the government.

The minimum requirement of the selection of the climate protection projects is a certification under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which guarantee the fulfillment of the UN’s rules and verification by third-party auditors. In addition to the UN rules for CDM, careful attention is paid to compliance with additional criteria to ensure high quality of the projects. Thus climate protection projects are required to show impact over and above purely the reduction of CO2 and have a sustainable added value for the project countries (also known as co-benefits). The related co-benefits are for example, training of local workers, the support of local supply facilities, the protection of other environmental elements / resource protection, rural electrification, strengthening of local jobs and improving health.

For more information about the German governments travel-related carbon offset approach, please visit the website of  the German Environment Agency.

Your contacts at UPM for the Sichuan Household Biogas PoA and its GS CERs are:

Martin Dilger, Managing Director, UPM Germany
mdilger(at)upm-cdm.eu, T: +49 89 1222197 – 50

and

Gaiai Guo, Vice General Manager, UPM China
guog(at)upm-cdm.eu, T: +86 10 6468 0500 – 13