An innovative project developed in 2006 provided Rio Tinto’s aluminium business, Rio Tinto Alcan, with the opportunity to explore offsets as part of a broader climate change strategy. The Minding the Carbon Store project has saved approximately 12,000 hectares of native vegetation from being cleared and generated around one million tons of fully verified greenhouse gas abatement (carbon credits) through avoided deforestation.
As a company that produces and uses large quantities of energy, Rio Tinto, an international mining group, seeks to combat climate change through a comprehensive program that focuses on three core themes:
- Reducing emissions from operations;
- Understanding and developing low-emission product pathways by working with others on supply chain emissions and on breakthrough technologies; and
- Engaging with governments and stakeholders to advocate sound and efficient domestic and international policies.
As part of its program, Rio Tinto invests in several research and development projects and other initiatives, often working in partnership with other companies and organizations to find technological solutions to climate change.
Minding the Carbon Store was developed as a result of a partnership between Rio Tinto Alcan and The Carbon Pool Pty Ltd – an Australian company established in 2001 to deal in emerging markets for greenhouse gas abatement.
The project aimed to create fully verified greenhouse gas abatements made possible by an impending ban on broad scale land clearing in Queensland, Australia. As a number of landholders held existing land clearing permits, The Carbon Pool Pty Ltd was able to purchase these permits and then register the reduction in clearing as verified abatements under the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Friendly initiative. Rio Tinto Alcan then purchased the carbon rights arising from the protection of the vegetation, counting the abatements as offsets in its greenhouse emissions inventories.
The Carbon Pool Pty Ltd will monitor the ongoing management of the vegetation and compliance of participating landowners and their successors, as the vegetation is protected from clearing for 120 years. The project includes a “buffer”, whereby 20% of all credits have been set aside to allow for potential losses due to fire, pests or drought, etc.
The Minding the Carbon Store project has contributed towards building valuable knowledge and capacity around validating biosequestration, or locking up carbon in vegetation, as a demonstrable and practical greenhouse gas emissions offset opportunity.
