Part 5: Estimating emissions changes from specific projects
5.1 DEFINING PROJECT BOUNDARIES
5.2 DEVELOPING THE PROJECT EMISSIONS BASELINE
5.3 MEASURING POST-IMPLEMENTATION EMISSION LEVELS
5.4 EXAMPLE: COMINCO LTD. STEAM MANAGEMENT
If your company undertakes a specific project that reduces emissions, you may
want to record the emission change. This step is not necessary for every project,
but is important for major projects.
Canadian governments have approved a Baseline Protection initiative. This initiative will allow businesses to record actions or projects they undertake to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and to have these reductions taken into account in the event that a future policy allocates emission rights or reduction obligations on the basis of emission levels. Sound records of project-specific emissions reductions are thus potentially vital to your company’s economic interests.
Baseline Protection requires that eligible emission reductions be real, measurable,
and verifiable. Definitions of these terms are provided in the accompanying
text box.
The emission reductions from a specific project are equivalent to the difference between project ‘baseline’ emissions and the actual emissions after a project has been implemented. Accordingly, determining the emission reduction requires:
1. a clear definition of the project boundaries;
2. the development of an emissions baseline for the project; and
3. the measurement of actual emission levels once the project has been implemented.
