The Tourism Industry Carbon Offset Service response to the Government's call for a new Standard for good quality Voluntary Carbon Offsets (VERs)

TICOS is currently working with over 30 companies from the travel and tourism industry to develop voluntary responses to climate change issues.   It is also a partner in a new national programme in Scotland - Climate Change Scotland.

We are also developing over 50 projects which will reduce carbon emissions in over 30 countries, with a range of international agencies and partners.

In the absence of a satisfactory alternative TICOS has recently developed its own Validation and Verification Standard, prepared by one of its senior independent advisors, Professor Stefan Gössling of Lund University in Sweden.

We have adopted three essential and fundamental principles in the development of this standard as follows:

1. A voluntary standard for offsetting should be equivalent in quality to any used in regulatory systems
2. VERs should complement - not duplicate - CERs
3. A VER standard must have a high level of consumer protection, transparency, due diligence and financial integrity

We fully support the view that those individuals and companies raising funds for climate change initiatives should have a high level of certainty that the custodians of these funds are allocating them in accordance with their wishes and to best practice whether or not this is through a regulatory or voluntary process.

We do however believe that VERs should provide an alternative to CERs for those (none regulated) companies and individuals seeking to pay an offset donation.

We have designed our own programme and a standard to reflect the differences between CERs and VERs; this can be summarised as follows:

1. VERs should be wider in scope than CERs, covering climate change action by any company or any individual from any walk of life;
2. VERs should encourage social change (lower carbon footprint for all); they should include wider sustainable development goals to provide environmental enhancement, economic and social wellbeing, educational goals and, where appropriate, pro poor benefits;  
3. VERs should be global in coverage not constrained to certain countries depending on government, convention or institutional led agreements;
4. VERs should be able to support micro projects without the burden of expensive institutional third party inspections that make them prohibitive in price. There are many high quality NGOs and international agencies which have the necessary level of due diligence and proven delivery records to allow inspections to be internalised;
5. VERs should be able to explore boundaries in relation to developing ideas.   Examples may include the creation of carbon sinks through new peat bogs, community tree planting schemes and avoided deforestation; and
6. The new standard should not simply be a technical or process driven document but should include wider issues such as stakeholder dialogue, financial guidance and enabling processes to incorporate new ideas.

We believe that the new TICOS Validation and Verification Standard has set a new benchmark for VERs, and given the right incentives and recognition we would be prepared to allow it be used as the base model for further dialogue.

Please note our standard is subject to copyright and whilst we are happy for it to be circulated within government, it should not be sent to any external parties without our express permission.   Please contact us if you or another party wish to view it.

Dick Sisman
TICOS Founder
March 2008