Have you ever seen those ads to adopt a star? While paying to name one in someone’s honor may sound like a nice gesture, the companies selling these gifts aren’t even officially authorized to name stars — only the International Astronomical Union can. With a lack of authority also comes issues like double-counting, where two people end up “buying” the same star, despite the billions that exist in our galaxy alone.
Similar issues crop up in the voluntary carbon market. It isn’t quite the Wild West it used to be, thanks to standard setters like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), rigorous carbon credit registries, and pressure from corporate buyers. Yet the conversation on independent third-party verification tends to start and stop with how carbon credits are generated by projects.
For buyers to achieve the impact they’re looking for, they also need assurance across the purchase and retirement phase of carbon credits. With a poorly run carbon credit provider, you could end up paying for a carbon credit that then gets resold to another buyer, making it about as effective as paying to name a star.
The good news is that Green-e® Certification programs provide added assurance, starting with certifying project quality, all the way through ensuring carbon credits are only used once and are properly retired.
“Terrapass is a strong supporter of Green-e® Certification programs,” says Sam Telleen, President of Terrapass. “Independent third-party verification of environmental products is important not just in the generation of credits by projects but also in the retirement of credits by sellers. We value the trust and confidence that Green-e® Certification provides to our customers.”
The majority of businesses don’t have the expertise and resources to source their own carbon credits and renewable energy certificates (RECs) and then manage their own accounts with the various product registries. They rely on environmental product providers to handle sourcing and retirement for them. Green-e provides an extra layer of assurance across these areas through an annual auditing process.
You can easily and affordably purchase Green-e® Energy Certified Terrapass RECs or Green-e® Climate Certified Terrapass Carbon Offsets for your businesses through Terrapass online. And you can use our carbon footprint calculator to get a better sense of the business emissions you want to balance.
Understanding Green-e® Certification
Green-e is a certification program from the nonprofit Center for Resource Solutions that helps verify the quality and proper accounting of clean energy and carbon offset purchases. It also has some other types of certifications, but for the environmental products market, the two main ones include:
Green-e® Energy The Green-e® Energy program certifies the sale of renewable energy from generation through retirement of any associated credits. This typically applies when businesses purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs). With RECs, businesses buy the right to claim the use of renewable energy. It’s impossible to know whether an end user on a shared power grid is getting electrons from a renewable energy source or fossil fuels. Instead, businesses can buy the environmental benefits of a specific megawatt-hour of renewable energy, which is then retired on their behalf. This gives the REC buyer the exclusive right to the zero-emissions claims from that megawatt hour.However, if the REC buyer was uncertain about the validity of the REC, including whether or not anyone else claims the use of that energy, that would undermine their efforts to reduce emissions with clean energy. So, Green-e® Energy Certified Terrapass RECs give buyers confidence not only that the power comes from qualified facilities contributing to the grid, but also that the buyer properly receives the sole title to the environmental benefits of that renewable energy generation.
Green-e® Climate Green-e® Climate provides third-party verification of carbon offsets. Similar to Green-e® Energy Certified Terrapass RECs, Green-e® Climate Certified Terrapass Carbon Offsets help buyers feel confident that they’re not only financing high-quality carbon projects, but also that they are getting exactly what they paid for, based on Green-e auditing sales and ensuring offsets are properly retired by the seller in qualified registries.
Terrapass is proud to offer our business customers both Green-e® Energy Certified RECs and Green-e® Climate Certified Carbon Offsets, which you can purchase online, or we can customize projects for you for your Green-e® Certified business purchase.
Three Key Benefits of Green-e® Certified Projects
If you’re buying a Green-e® Certified REC or carbon offset, you can gain assurance in three main areas:
- Project Quality
Not all projects are eligible for Green-e® Certification. For example, Green-e® Climate Certified offset projects have to be verified by an Endorsed Program, which includes:
- American Carbon Registry
- Climate Action Reserve
- Gold Standard
- Verified Carbon Standard
The project quality verification differs a bit for other projects like RECs, but in general, if you’re buying a Green-e® Certified REC or offset, that adds a layer of quality assurance.
- Marketing
Connected to project quality is the fact that Green-e requires projects to be marketed accurately and transparently, across project developers, third-party sellers, and buyers. For example, Green-e conducts annual marketing compliance reviews to ensure sellers are meeting program standards. Green-e also restricts how its logo can be used, so in general, if you see Green-e certifications, you can feel confident that there’s a thorough process behind those marketing efforts.
- Chain of Custody
Lastly, Green-e verifies sales throughout the entire chain of custody, ensuring that the right project ends up with the right buyer and is properly retired. For example, Green-e checks each year to match the Green-e® Certified carbon offset or REC sales a seller has made with corresponding retirements in approved registries. That ensures that any sold credits do not remain unretired, which otherwise would raise the risk of the same credit being sold to multiple buyers.
Get Green-e Assurance Through Terrapass
If you want your carbon financing to have its intended impact, it’s critical to choose a seller that sets high-quality standards for its projects and is a registered participant of the Green-e® Energy and Green-e® Climate programs. Terrapass is proud to offer a portfolio of both Green-e® Energy Certified RECs and Green-e® Climate Certified Carbon Offsets.
We also offer a wide range of other types of high-quality projects, and we can help your business develop a portfolio of REC and carbon credit solutions to meet your corporate sustainability goals.
“We appreciate the support of participants like Terrapass, which bring the benefits of Green-e® Energy and Green-e® Climate certification to their clients,” said Jennifer Martin, CEO of Center for Resource Solutions, which administers the Green-e®.”
Choose Green-e® Certified Climate Solutions
Get confidence that your climate action delivers real impact.
Terrapass offers Green-e® Climate Certified Carbon Offsets and
Green-e® Energy Certified RECs, independently verified for quality,
proper accounting, and single-use retirement.
