Comparative analysis of carbon offset initiaves in the last years in Brazil

Jaime L. Rodacoski, Gabriel F.C. Felício & Carlos Fernando S. Andrade, August 2017

‘Lepac Carbon Offset Program - an educative project aiming greenhouse gas emission mitigation through education and community involvement to restoration of unproductive areas from the Atlantic Rain Forest in Brazil’. This is an example of a Responsible Education Project for Sustainability in line with the Alliance proposals on responsibility. The proponents are part of our network of allies in South America.

Isis Maria de Palma Augusto, August, 2017

CCLepac is the Portuguese acronym for ‘Carbono Compensado - Laboratório de Estudos e Pesquisas em Artes e Ciências’. It is the name for a carbon offset program created by students from the State University of Campinas, Brazil (UNICAMP) during the Environmental Education course at Paraty and developed by the laboratory for extension Lepac and partners from Paraty. It is important to highlight that this initiative is the only one with academic support, from the most important university in Latin America according to THE (Times Higher Education) and the forth on the 2017 League Table of the top 200 Universities in Latin America.

This paper presented by the Lepac coordinator professor Carlos Fernando S. Andrade and two colleagues, Jaime L. Rodacoski and Gabriel F.C. Felício, involved on the initiative compares carbon offset voluntary initiatives implemented in Brazil in the last years. Through internet search engine they found eleven initiatives and analyzed the basic aspects of their management. They found a great diversity in many aspects and that three initiatives are now discontinued. A clear lack of regulation and supervision of these initiatives is pointed. The Lepac offset program is discussed in some details and they discussed the challenge to build basic regulations of the carbon offsetting initiatives.

Downloads: the_projectcclepac_alliancerespons_eng.pdf (480 KiB)