Cool Effect Blog

Before a carbon project is allowed onto the Cool Effect platform, our team thoroughly vets its science and financials to ensure that it’s viable, high quality and meets our Carbon Done Correctly criteria. Even then, there are some things that numbers can’t tell you. In order to get the full story on a potential Cool Effect project, a large part of our vetting process involves site visits from our team in order to see that carbon project’s community impact — The Good On The Ground — up close and in person. That process is what led us to the Sundarbans, a cluster of low-lying islands in the Bay of Bengal, an active delta that spans around 40,000 sq km and lies half underwater. Within the Sundarbans you’ll find the Sundarbans mangrove forest, a 10,000 sq km stretch of forest that spans India and Bangladesh and is home to many rare and threatened wildlife species, including the single largest population of Bengal tigers in the world. In addition to the wildlife, this area is home to over three million native residents, whose homes and livelihoods (primarily fishing, crab harvesting, timber, and honey collecting) are inextricably tied to this complex, dynamic, and [...]

Northwest of Dehli in the center of India as well as in a location outside of Lucknow, another carbon project is using carbon finance-funded technology to help farmers adopt new and improved agricultural practices, something we refer to as The Good on The Ground. When it comes to agriculture, India’s most prevalent crops include rice and sugar, so much so that they’re the second largest producer of rice and sugar cane in the world. As such, agriculture is also one of India’s leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions thanks to a lack of sophisticated farming methods, the production of massive amounts of crop residue, burning fields in preparation for the next planting, and more. Increasing global temperatures also impact India much more intensely than other countries, and one unfortunate side effect of our warming planet is a reduction in the overall yield of these two prized crops. Adding to the problem is the fact that rice stalk, cotton stalk, or even sugar cane residue, releases greenhouse gases when burned as well as incinerates some of the carbon in the soil. Rice stalk is burned after harvesting because on average, farmers have roughly two weeks between the harvest and the next [...]

We knew before our recent visit to The Katingan Mentaya Project in Indonesia (home to For Peat’s Sake on our platform) that the impact of carbon finance on this region and its people was significant, but once we were there, the true magnitude of this project’s benefits began to sink in. Palm oil production, acacia conversion, illegal logging, and hunting threaten Indonesia’s peatlands, which comprise nearly 40 percent of the world’s tropical peatlands. Worldwide, peat soils contain more than 600 gigatonnes of sequestered carbon, which represents nearly 44% of all soil carbon — and exceeds the carbon stored in all other vegetation types, including all of the forests on Earth. As such, damaged peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for almost 5% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This project specifically protects 157,000 hectares of the peat swamp ecosystem (home of one of the largest remaining intact peat swamp forests in Indonesia), from conversion to acacia forests, which would then be clear-cut to make paper. Thanks to the climate finance generated by this project and the hard work of the local communities, we’re able to help avoid the emissions of 7.5 million tonnes of CO2e each year, [...]

Carbon pricing 101 We have a saying here at Cool Effect: “Do your best, and offset the rest.” We say it because offsets are not some silver bullet, they’re designed to help you reduce emissions you otherwise can’t through conventional climate actions. Our friend Christiana Figueres said it well: “Done with integrity, with decent rules and accountability mechanisms, offsets can help companies and countries big and small on their journey to our net-zero future while supporting communities on the ground. What offsets are not, even with the highest degree of integrity, is a pass to continue emitting.” And once an individual or organization makes the decision to turn to voluntary carbon markets in order to offset their emissions, one of the key pieces of information they look for is the actual price of carbon credits. With this information, individuals can decide if this is within their budget, and a company can decide how ambitious it can be when setting its emission reduction target and whether voluntary markets can help reach it. But where do those costs come from? How exactly do you put a price on carbon? A good question — and it’s one that a lot of people are asking. Carbon is [...]

Our Climate Faces Catastrophe. But High-Quality Carbon Offsets Are Showing Results. Dee Lawrence and her family traveled to rural Honduras in 2002 to translate for and help support health care providers who were caring for residents in the wake of a devastating hurricane. The trip ended up transforming the lives of residents and Lawrence herself, and countless others. She and her family encountered many women and children suffering from respiratory illnesses and, in time, identified one source of the problem: traditional woodburning stoves filling homes with toxic smoke. Determined to help, Lawrence launched an initiative that identified a stove that would suit the local cooking style, and oversaw the testing, construction, and installation of efficient stoves in rural Honduran homes. They improved the quality of indoor air and burned less wood, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. “We never set out to create a carbon project. We set out to solve a health problem,” Lawrence says. “Luckily, the key to that solution also ended up having real benefits to the planet.” The project’s success and clear, tangible impact inspired Lawrence to create a nonprofit called Cool Effect with her husband, Richard, in 2015. Since then, Cool Effect has been [...]

Code Red for Humanity On Monday, August 9th the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 6th annual scientific report on Earth’s climate system. The report has immediately been referred to as “Code Red for Humanity.” Here are several notable highlights from the 3,949-page report: 1. It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred. After rigorous testing, the scientific community has confirmed with little doubt that human influence has had a dramatic impact on climate change. We are witnessing this with an increase in erratic never-before-seen weather events. The report also confirmed that extreme weather events, including heatwaves, have become more frequent and more intense since the 1950s, while cold events have become less frequent and less severe. 2. Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5°C and 2.0°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades. Between 2011 and 2021, Earth’s surface temperature was 1.09°C higher than between 1850-1900. It is expected [...]

The ABCs of Carbon Offsetting: Definitions of Common Terms in the Carbon Market Cool Effect intends to promote the highest quality carbon offset (emission reduction) projects in the world under the Cool Effect program of Carbon Done Correctly. However, we are often asked, “What is the definition of “high quality”? Consider these handy definitions (with a little help from the EDF and SEI) with regard to the ABCs of Carbon Offsets — a helpful way to better understand the importance of Carbon Done Correctly. Additionality This is the most important term in the entire lexicon. Without additionality, a carbon project should not exist. According to the EDF and WWF, in the context of carbon credits, emission reductions or removals from a mitigation activity are additional if the mitigation activity would not have taken place in the absence of the added incentive/funding created by the sale of carbon credits. Other terms reference specific kinds of tests or methods used to assess additionality, such as investment analysis, barrier analysis (technological and financial), evaluation as to whether the activity is common practice without the need for sale of offsets, or whether there is a legal requirement for the project to be implemented. Some people refer to these [...]

What Makes a High-Quality Carbon Offset? Since Day 1, Cool Effect is committed to transparency, it is at the forefront of everything we do. From our pricing of carbon offsets to our administrative fees, to our rejection of any hidden costs, to our guarantee that every single project on our platform has been thoroughly vetted and triple-verified, we feel that there’s no better way to ensure Carbon Done Correctly than through an unwavering commitment to transparency. When we started Cool Effect in 2015, we knew there was an increasing demand from individuals, organizations and businesses who wanted to take direct action to reduce their carbon emissions — but over the last year, the depth and intensity of that demand has become even more pronounced. Carbon Done Correctly and our model for evaluating projects has become even more important to help protect true emission reductions. Our passionate community of 500,000+, who do their best to reduce their carbon footprint, then offset the rest, have reduced over 3 million tonnes of carbon emissions since 2015. This growth made it clear to us that by demonstrating a true carbon benefit, displaying full transparency in our pricing, and highlighting secondary benefits of projects on [...]

Why You Should Join the Ranks of Carbon Neutral Companies Many climate change issues are connected to our global continued growth in carbon emissions. In 2015, the Paris agreement required nearly every country in the world to commit to a specified emission reduction target. The private sector has been under pressure from consumers, employees and other stakeholders to play their part too. As a result, many companies are pursuing strategies to become one of many carbon neutral companies. Carbon neutrality has become a catch-all term for enterprises seeking to offset the carbon dioxide their operations are emitting into the atmosphere. Surprisingly, companies reducing their carbon footprint benefit from more than contributing to a cleaner planet. Climate neutral certified businesses also find financial success. So, how do companies become carbon neutral? Today, we’re going to explore how to become carbon neutral, business strategies that will reduce your carbon footprint, and what’s involved in the carbon certification process. What is Carbon Neutrality? Carbon neutrality refers specifically to the planet’s need to maintain homeostasis through the emission of greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and the absorption of CO2 into carbon sinks. Human activities have thrown this balance off-kilter, and excess CO2 is added to [...]

What is Carbon Sequestration? Since the industrial revolution, we have seen sizable increases in greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted into the atmosphere. In fact, emissions have grown exponentially every year so that in 1970 the carbon component in the atmosphere was 325 parts per million and in 2019 it was 409 parts per million. This annual rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age 11,000-17,000 years ago. There is a global goal to keep temperatures below a 2 degree centigrade rise by 2100, a goal that seems only partially possible without greater action to reduce and prevent emissions or to find a way to increase carbon dioxide sequestration. With industries around the world emitting 10 Gigatonnes (one billion metric tonnes) of GHGs every year, the need for carbon sequestration is dire. Here are some types of carbon sequestration that will hopefully be able to make an impact. Carbon Sequestration Explained Carbon dioxide sequestration is removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and putting them into long-term carbon storage to prevent the warming of the planet. It’s [...]