Carbon Offsetting
By providing a service for clients to allow for reuse of their redundant IT assets, the client is allowing the saving of material resources, which would have been required to build new IT equipment. This, in turn, results in a saving of carbon emissions.
EOL IT Services is very aware of the impact of its own activities and that working on a zero landfill policy is not the end of the matter. We need to address the carbon emissions created by our processing procedures and our fleet of vehicles.
EOL operates an efficient logistics strategy with effective traffic management and have received the endorsement of The CarbonNeutral Company for the offsetting of our logistics carbon emissions for our vehicle fleet.
This means that EOL is “CarbonNeutral®” for all its collections and deliveries.
The CarbonNeutral Company has calculated our annual transportation C02 emissions and this year (2010-2011) we have chosen to offset these emissions by supporting a Renewable Energy Project in Brazil.
The Rio Ceramics Biomass Project replaces heavy oil with renewable biomass to generate energy at three ceramic brick manufacturing facilities in the state of Rio de Janiero.
This project has two verification standards: The Voluntary Carbon Standard which measures the emissions reductions generated by the project, and The Social Carbon Standard which measures the project’s contribution to sustainable development. To quantify these activities, the project commits to improving against a set of sustainable development indicators which they are continually assessed against through annual monitoring and independent verification. All three sites have documented improvement goals which they will continue to develop as revenue from carbon finance is generated:
• At Vila Nova, the project owner supports a number of local charities and, through an onsite well, makes water available to the local community.
• The Sao Silvestre owner works with a local NGO, Mundo Verde, providing an income to slum dwellers through the purchase of the recyclable wood residues they collect.
• The Nova Dutra owner provides clay and sponsors a teacher at the Espaco Cultural Francisco de Assis Franca; a local institution that runs pottery classes and social youth projects.
• Another activity at Nova Dutra is the donation of bricks to the local community to help rebuild and repair homes.
• Additionally, a new initiative has been identified at Nova Dutra which will be developed if enough revenue is raised from carbon credits. This initiative will involve building a small collection and digester system for residential waste, generating biogas to fuel a community kitchen.
EOL is proud to have again received, for the third year in succession, the Business in the Community Big Tick Award in the Eco-Efficiency category.
This endorsement from such an eminent organisation reflects the seriousness with which EOL addresses its own and its clients’ environmental responsibilities.
