Vetting Carbon Offset Options

Julia Gisewite

Chief Sustainability Officer

Turner Construction Company

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January 20, 2020

For those who work for companies that track and offset their carbon each year, how do you do it? Looking for best practices and how you vetted where to send your money. Don't need insight on quantifying carbon footprint, just offsetting. Thanks!

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Mark Perepelitza

Sustainability Director

BRIC Architecture

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Mon, 01/20/2020 - 17:44

There are a number of non-profits that offer 3rd-party verified carbon offsets. At SERA, we offset our carbon footprint through a regional non-profit, BEF (Bonneville Environmental Foundation). The key thing is that the offsets are verified by a credible 3rd party entity. BEF offsets are verified by CCB Standards, VCS, and/or the Climate Action Reserve.

Suni Dillard

Architect

HMFH

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Tue, 01/21/2020 - 14:09

I agree that they should be verified by a credible 3rd party entity. Our office has been working with Native Energy out of Vermont. https://nativeenergy.com/ They've been really helpful with finding the right project to support and at helping us narrow our footprint number after we did some preliminary calculations.

Larry Strain

Siegel & Strain Architects

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Tue, 01/21/2020 - 18:23

Here is a good paper from Penn on evaluating carbon offset programs https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/carbon-offsets.pdf One of the programs they rate highly is Cool Effect https://www.cooleffect.org Larry Strain, FAIA LEED AP S I E G E L & S T R A I N A r c h i t e c t s 6201 Doyle Street, Emeryville, CA 94608 510.547.8092 x103 fax 510.547.2604 (Enter on 62nd Street) lstrain@siegelstrain.com www.siegelstrain.com

Heather DeGrella

Sustainable Design Director, Associate Principal

Opsis Architecture

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Tue, 01/21/2020 - 19:52

Has anyone included an option in their contracts for the client to contribute to Carbon Offsets related to the carbon impact of a particular project? This is an idea we are exploring and are curious how and if other firms have done something similar.