The Carbon Trust

The Carbon Trust

Type	Not for Dividend Private Company Limited by Guarantee
Industry	Carbon Management and Reduction
Founded	2001
Founder(s)	United Kingdom Government
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Key people	Tom Delay (CEO) James Smith (Chairman)
Website	www.carbontrust.co.uk

The Carbon Trust is a not for dividend company limited by guarantee created in 2001 by the UK government to help businesses and public organisations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, through improved energy efficiency, carbon management, and developing commercial low carbon technology. Its stated mission is to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy.

The Carbon Trust's core activity consists of helping companies and organisations reduce carbon emissions through providing specialist help, support and advice. As of August 2011 the Carbon Trust had saved its customers £3.7bn in energy costs and 38MtCO2.

Funds and financing

The Carbon Trust also funds the development and deployment of low carbon technologies and is actively engaged in the fuel cell, wave energy, wind energy, solar energy, biomass and biofuels sectors. Unusually for a government sponsored organisation it operates venture capital funds - in this case in the early-stage low carbon technology sector.

It finances a number of loan funds - including an interest-free loan for small and medium sized enterprises for energy-efficient equipment in Wales & Northern Ireland, a similar scheme for the public sector covering the whole of the UK, and from April 2011 an Energy efficiency financing scheme in partnership with Siemens worth around £550 million. In the year ending March 2012, the trust is receiving funding of around £50 million from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Scottish Government, the National Assembly for Wales, and Invest Northern Ireland.

It was originally partly funded from the Climate Change Levy, a tax on electricity, gas, and coal.

Subsidiary companies

It also has created a number of subsidiary companies such as Partnership for Renewables which develops renewable energy on public sector land and Low Carbon Workplace which funds and develops the low carbon refurbishment of buildings; Solar Press and Eight19 working on organic photovoltaics; and Future Blends which converts biomass to transport fuel.

Services

Advice

The Carbon Trust looks at current and future sustainability challenges and works with the public sector and businesses to develop sustainable policy and strategies to deliver savings.

Implementation

The Carbon Trust provides procurement and finance support to help businesses achieve carbon and cost savings. The partnership with Siemens Financial Services allows financing options to be delivered to customers.

Carbon Footprinting, Verification and Carbon Trust Standard

The Carbon Trust provides voluntary carbon certification services and carbon labelling schemes – it verifies organisation and product carbon footprint data and provides marks of quality to organisations to demonstrate standards have been met.

Developing Clean Technology

The Carbon Trust works with governments, innovators and corporates with the aim of accelerating the commercialisation of low carbon technologies, and leads projects to deliver commercial partnerships and develop low carbon technologies.

Thought Leadership

The Carbon Trust provides analysis on sustainability issues to help businesses, investors and policy makers with their roles in reducing carbon and saving energy.

Carbon Footprinting, Verification and Carbon Trust Standard

Carbon Label

The Carbon Trust Footprinting Company, formerly the Label Company, is the subsidiary company that helps companies to measure the carbon emissions associated with their products (embodied emissions) and also provides a label for these products carbon footprint. Measuring the embodied emissions of products enables reductions to be identified and achieved across the supply chain. The label demonstrates a commitment by the product owner to reduce that footprint every 2 years. The Carbon Reduction Label was introduced for the first time, in the UK in March 2007.

Examples of products featuring their carbon footprint in the UK are Walkers Crisps, a range of own brand products in Tesco supermarkets, Halifax (HBOS) bank accounts, Dyson airblades, Marshalls building products, Kingsmill bread, Quaker oats, Silver Spoon sugar, Tate & Lyle sugar and La Farge cement.

The standards behind carbon labelling are now formally recognised through the PAS 2050 developed by the Carbon Trust in conjunction with BSI and Defra. This methodology is now gaining international acceptance following its launch in October 2008.

Carbon Trust Standard

In June 2008 the Carbon Trust introduced the Carbon Trust Standard to address what it describes as business greenwash. The carbon standard is only awarded to companies and organisations who measure and reduce their carbon emissions year on year. The Standard will also play a part in the introduction of the government's Carbon Reduction Commitment which is due to be introduced in 2010. Achievement of the Standard will help companies demonstrate robust early action in the scheme.

Twelve organisations received the standard in the first round - these included Morrisons supermarkets, B&Q, Dfid, University of Central Lancashire, Thames Water and Trinity Mirror. As of May 2009 seventy organisations had achieved the Standard, including BT Group, Kyocera, Barclays Capital, Hewlett Packard, University of Manchester, Citrica, Ricoh, Diageo and O2. By February 2011 over 500 organisations had achieved the Standard including Tesco, Mothercare, Moss Plastics, Manchester United, Serco, Linklaters, Bolton Wanderers Football Club, British Land and Motorola.

Verification

The Carbon Trust provides independent assurance of corporate carbon footprint data. Companies displaying the Carbon Trust Verified logo show that they have genuinely measured an accurate carbon footprint in line with international best practice.

Equivalent Scheme

As part of the implementation of the Carbon Reduction Commitment companies can also demonstrate early action through an 'equivalent mark' [1] Carbon Trust Equivalent Scheme Document. Subject to approval by The Environment Agency, this will allow equal early action credits to be received by bearers of these marks under the government's Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme.

Staff

The current Chief Executive is Tom Delay, who came to the trust after a career with energy company Shell and management consultancies McKinsey and A.T. Kearney.

The current Chairman is James Smith, formerly Chairman of Shell UK.

Challenges

The Carbon Trust has created a number of renewable funding challenges e.g. in the offshore wind, marine and biomass areas, and most recently, the Algae Biofuels Challenge.

See also

• Energy use and conservation in the United Kingdom

External links

• The Carbon Trust
• Carbon Label
• Partnership for Renewables
• Solar Press
• Eight19
• Carbon Trust Standard
• Carbon Trust funded research in laser ignition systems
• Introduction to the Carbon Trust, presentation in the California Air Resources Board´s Air Pollution Seminar Series.