The Netherlands: Carbon Experts - Holland Financial Center

and Greenchoice BV, marketing activities have taken place toencourage consumers in the Netherlands to reduce and offsettheir carbon emissions. Greenchoice is the ‘greenest’ energysupplier to the dutch market, partly owned by Dutch utilityEneco. Greenchoice offers the fair carbon credits to customersto offset their emissions from the usage of gas for heating andhot water.A Different Type of Carbon FundA key difference between FCF and other Carbon Funds is thatFCF pays fair prices to the producers of the carbon credits.FCF invests in projects at a households level in countriessuch as South Africa and India and considers these familiesas the producers of FCF’s carbon credits. The fair prices aredetermined based on the cost of the project and the socialimpact. FCF goes further by structuring the purchase contractto share the sales income with the initiating partner NGO, orwith the individual families participating in the project.Social impactIn South Africa, families that live in the South African townshipsare very much affected by air pollution, caused mainly by coalfi res used for cooking and heating. FCF and the South Africanbased NOVA institute have reached out to 40,000 familiesin South African townships to improve their living standardsand use more effi cient cooking techniques, called the ‘BasaMagogo’ method of cooking. Direct benefi ts are a 50%reduction in coal use, 90% reduction indoor air pollution and 2hrs/day gain in time for women for economic activities. The totalemission reduction is expected to be 100,000 tons of carbondioxide over 5 years.In India FCF has invested in the construction of biogas units for8000 families, with the aim of reaching another 10,000 families.The biogas units almost completely reduce indoor air pollution,and provide women and children with 3 hours extra per day foreducational and economic activities. Additionally, the biogasprovides three times more heat than traditional fi rewood and theleftover slurry is more fertile than the original manure. Beyondthe health benefi ts, this project is also expected to prevent up to150,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 5 years.23