Carbon cuts on shop list

MX Brisbane
Tuesday 19/2/2008 Page: 11

Half a kilo of salmon; 2kg of potatoes: a tonne of greenhouse gas reductions - shoppers at a Norwegian mall are buying cuts in their carbon footprint as they do the weekly grocery shop. The Stroemmen Storsenter shopping centre outside Oslo began selling UN-approved certificates on Sunday, at $33.50 a tonne, to people who feel bad about contributing to climate change.

On its second day of offering the Certified Emissions Reductions, the centre had sold more than a third of the 1000 on offer and was set to buy more, mall managers said. One CER corresponds to a tonne of carbon dioxide emissions reductions via the Kvoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, which allows rich countries to invest in emissions-cutting projects in developing nations and count the cuts as their own.

Each Norwegian accounts for about 11 tonnes of greenhouse gas a year. "Many people want to buy reductions but haven't known where to get them. Now they are available to everybody," said Ole Herredsvela. the mall's technical manager. Until now. householders had only been able to obtain emissions credits when buying airline tickets.

The shopping centre. Norway's third-biggest, is not making money from the sales, selling them at cost plus a 10 per cent administration fee, which goes to Norwegian carbon management services firm CO2focus. Herredsvela said. CO2focus bought the CERs from EcoSecurities in Oxford. The British company obtained them from its involvement in a wind power project in Maharashtra, India.