Carbon Credits through Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) & Gold Standard (GS) programs

BACKGROUND

Carbon credits are certificates issued to organizations that reduce their emission of Green House Gases (GHGs) responsible for global warming. They are also called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) and Gold Standard – VER (GS-VER) units in technical terms. Each unit is equivalent to one ton of CO₂ reduced. Generally, for each ton of CO₂ emission avoided, an organization would get a carbon credit which could be sold through a global market to commercial and individual customers interested in offsetting their carbon footprint. The ultimate goal of carbon credits is to reduce the emission of GHGs into the atmosphere.

High level of GHG emissions result from activities such as industrial processes, fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, etc. Burning of fossil fuels is a major source of industrial GHG emissions, especially in the power, cement, steel, textile, and fertilizer industries. The concept of carbon credits came into existence as a result of the increasing awareness of the need for controlling GHG emissions. CO₂, the most important among GHGs, was turned into a trading opportunity to help combat global warming. Carbon credits were trading instruments introduced to counter carbon emissions and mitigate global warming.

C&W Services Singapore’s scope of work involves:

• Preliminary feasibility study and risks identification
• Conduct local stakeholder consultation and project listing 
• Develop project design document
• Carryout third party validation and project registration
• Establish monitoring plan and carryout third party verification
• Issuance & trading of carbon credits

In addition, C&W Services is managing another energy efficiency project under carbon credit programme at New Tech Park (NTP) in Singapore, by replacing existing chillers with energy efficient chillers (which has refrigerant with lower global warming potential) to achieve an energy savings of 2.4 million kWh per annum. This translates to a reduction of 2,160 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission per annum.

In early 2020, C&W Services also helped to certify five ground mounted solar plants (with the total capacity of 410 MW) in Vietnam under the Gold Standard carbon credit programme. The project has the capacity to produce 663 million kWh of electricity annually to the rural areas. This will prevent the emission of 563,500 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

C&W Services is currently developing a ground mounted solar plants (with the total capacity of 120 MW) in the Philippines under the Gold Standard carbon credit programme. The project has the capacity to produce 162 million kWh of electricity annually and this will prevent the emission of 110,600 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

C&W Services Singapore has:

• Registered the very first pCDM (Programmatic Clean Development Mechanism) project in Singapore with UNFCCC and it’s the only project in Singapore to be successfully registered ever.
• Registered two LED lighting (at Town Councils) and 1 Chiller replacement (at NTP) projects in Singapore under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) program. More than 50,000 carbon credits were claimed and sold. 
• Certified five solar plants (total of 410MW) in Vietnam under the Gold Standard – Verified Emission Reduction (GS-VER) program.
• Listed one solar plant (120MW) in the Philippines under the GS-VER program.
• Preliminary feasibility study done for waste management project in Indonesia under the VCS program.