New SmaaartTM Carbon Offset Program Enables Companies to Support Entrepreneurs in Emerging Markets

September 20, 2016 /3BL Media/ -- Companies can create impacts beyond carbon that make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals while delivering US$151 in benefits per carbon credit per year.

Colorado-based Envirofit International, a global social enterprise that develops clean energy cookstoves, has pioneered a new corporate carbon offset program that enables companies to impact local communities in the developing world by creating jobs and improving livelihoods. Through the programme, Envirofit links carbon credit buyers to social entrepreneurs in the developing world in order to build local capacity, develop local markets and create jobs.

Even in regions where carbon offsets are not mandatory, hundreds of corporations, including airlines and automotive companies, voluntarily offset their emissions. Envirofit’s new program is now enabling companies to move beyond standard carbon offsetting in their quest for sustainability by providing small-scale clean cookstove enterprises with training, marketing and sales support.

According to the 2016 Gold Standard Supply Report, investing in clean cookstove carbon credits delivers an additional US$151 per credit beyond carbon reductions in social, health, and economic benefits to communities in the developing world. In addition, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves states that clean cookstove programmes directly contribute to achieving ten of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Envirofit’s SmaaartTM carbon offset program takes this impact a step further by investing the premium from these credits into enterprise development, which supports training and women’s empowerment programs that create local jobs.

“By investing in clean cookstove carbon credits, companies have the unique opportunity to achieve environmental sustainability through carbon offsets while making significant progress on the SDGs – all through one programme,” said Nick Marshall, Managing Director of Carbon Programs for Envirofit. “Envirofit’s SmaaartTM carbon program goes even further by directly linking companies’ offsetting initiatives with support for social entrepreneurs in the developing world.”

Many leading companies such as Google, Microsoft and Toyota already voluntarily offset their carbon emissions, and their numbers are growing. According to the 2016 Ecosystem Marketplace report, voluntary buyers around the world paid to offset the equivalent of 84.1 million tons of CO2 in 2015 – a 10 percent increase from 2014 – with a total market value of US$278 million.

About Envirofit
Envirofit International is a social enterprise that innovates smart energy products designed to improve lives on a global scale. Using a market-based approach, Envirofit offers a global product line of smart clean cookstoves that cook faster while reducing fuel use, smoke and toxic emissions. Serving more than 5 million people in energy poverty, Envirofit’s smart stoves reduce climate change, create new jobs and enable families to save money.

For more information, see: www.envirofit.org

Contact
Jessica Alderman, Director of Communications
Jessica.alderman@envirofit.org
1-970-372-2874