South African Breweries (SAB), the primary sponsor of the South Africa 2009 Lions Series, have extended their environmental support to a unique new project, ‘Greening the Boks’, which aims to offset the carbon emissions generated by the Springbok team’s transport and accommodation during this tour.
Our blood is environmentally green
This project aims to showcase SAB’s commitment to a cleaner climate, which consists of a strategy that focuses on lessening the overall carbon footprint in many different areas of their business. ‘Greening the Boks’ is a pioneer campaign that allows for the creation of a new platform of climate change awareness in rugby and sport in South Africa.
To achieve this SAB will adhere to international best practice and offset the Boks emissions by purchasing Kyoto compliant carbon credits in order to minimize the environmental impact of the Boks on tour. SAB and SA Rugby have enlisted global carbon solutions company Cleaner Climate to calculate the emissions generated from the Boks tour by conducting a Carbon Footprint Assessment using the methodology of the Green House Gas Protocol and the ISO 14000 series. These calculations include elements such as flights, accommodation and ground transport.
Rob Fleming, SAB Sponsorship Manager, says “This is the first national sports team in South Africa to support climate change mitigation, and we urge corporate companies involved in sports sponsorships to demonstrate their dedication to protecting the environment.” Environmental considerations such as carbon offsetting will also play an important part of future Rugby World Cups, with New Zealand striving to host a carbon neutral event in 2011.
The Boks will be encouraged to tackle climate change as well, by pledging to adopt a greener lifestyle and showing fans how simple changes to their behaviour can make significant changes to the environment. The Springbok team and management took time off from training recently to learn about the threat of climate change and South Africa’s vulnerability to its effects.
“Greening the Boks” is an effort to show commitment to rugby and the environment in South Africa, and SAB hopes that this initiative will set the benchmark within the global rugby community.SA Rugby has starting on a sustainability path by drafting a Climate Change Strategy, and has recently conducted a carbon footprint assessment of the Cape Town Head Office. SAB hopes that the influence of SA sports star brand will promote a call to action regarding climate change, as a platform to get a very powerful message out there to the supporters and public in general.
About Cleaner Climate
Cleaner Climate is a specialist carbon solutions firm with expertise in developing tailored corporate climate change strategies and carbon management plans to assist businesses in minimizing the risk and identifying the opportunities in a carbon constrained world. Services include carbon footprint assessment, energy efficiency & reduction initiatives, green product/service development, offsetting and carbon project identification & development.
Cleaner Climate is headquartered in the United Kingdom and has a global network of operations in over 6 countries.
Cleaner Climate is a Top 100 member of the UN Climate Neutral Network, and is a preferred supplier to United Nations Environment Program (UNEP and was recently selected as a member of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Quality Assurance Scheme for Carbon Offsetting forum.
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a legally binding agreement that arose out of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) to tackle climate change through a reduction of green house gas emissions. Developed countries are legally bound to reduce man-made greenhouse gases emissions. Developing countries do not have mandatory reductions but are required to report on emissions.
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol:
An initiative from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) designed to support credible reporting and accounting for GHG emissions.
What is a Carbon Project?
Carbon projects are emission reduction projects that reduce, remove or destroy CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Examples include renewable energy (solar, wind hydro etc), energy efficiency (replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFL’s, changes to manufacturing/industrial processes) and industrial/animal/landfill gas destruction. They are situated in developing countries.
Carbon credits
A carbon credit is a tradable stock that represents one tonne CO2 reduced or removed from the atmosphere by a registered carbon project.
Selling the carbon credit provides the project developer with an additional financial revenue stream that contributes towards the economic viability of the project. Carbon projects represent technologies and practices that are not business as usual and are thus more expensive, making the financial incentive of the carbon credit necessary to ensure implementation.
Carbon credits are the market based mechanism that the UN devised to stimulate the transfer of clean technology from developed to developing countries where projects would be cheaper to implement.
Offsetting
This refers to mitigating the carbon emissions of an individual, event or organisation by purchasing the equivalent number of carbon credits and thus compensating for the environmental impact of these emissions.
For example, if a company’s operations emits 100t of CO2, they can they purchase 100 carbon credits, which represent 100t of carbon emission reductions arising from a carbon project.
Offsetting can be an environmentally responsible manner in which to mitigate emissions. Nonetheless, it should only be viewed as a piece of the puzzle. It is imperative that companies develop internal initiatives that focus on decreasing their emissions as related to energy, water and waste, and in so doing minimize their overall footprint.
