Nov 13 2007
Leonardo Academy announced last week during the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Annual Greenbuild International Conference & Exposition that this event is offsetting its emissions under Leonardo Academy's Cleaner and Greener® Program which is dedicated to reducing and offsetting emissions to improve health and climate. For the sixth consecutive year, Leonardo Academy has donated its Cleaner and Greener® services to the USGBC for calculating emissions, gathering emission offsets, and certifying the level of offsets achieved. For this year's conference in Chicago, IL, the current emission offsets donated have offset 100 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions and average of 50 percent of each of the other types of emissions from based on projected Greenbuild attendance and energy use.
The Cleaner and Greener® Program certifies organizations and events for offsetting emissions from energy use. This program addresses emissions that impact both human health and climate. Michael Arny, President of Leonardo Academy, said, "Reducing and offsetting emissions that affect climate and health is a critical pert of reducing our environmental impacts and everyone can follow the U.S. Green building Council's Greenbuild example in taking action."
Projected Greenbuild energy use and emissions were prepared by Leonardo Academy. Leonardo Academy is gathering donations of emissions offsets from both companies and individual donors to offset Greenbuild emissions. Large emission reduction donors for this event are: Milliken & Company, Wind Current, and Sterling Planet. Greenbuild attendees also have the opportunity to offset their personal attendance emissions through charitable contributions toward the purchase of emission offsets. Offset Sources donated through Cleaner and Greener to offset Conference emissions:
- Milliken -- Donated more than 25 million pounds of carbon dioxide sequestration credits from its forests, enough to offset 100% of the carbon dioxide emissions generated by Greenbuild 2007 (www.sustainablecarpet.com),
- WindCurrent -- Donated 500,000 kWh of Green-e certified wind renewable energy credits sourced from Midwestern wind farms (www.windcurrent.com),
- Sterling Planet -- Donated 200,000 kWh of Green-e certified biomass and wind-generated renewable energy credits (www.sterlingplanet.com).
Donated emission offsets will be permanently retired to offset the carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), and mercury (Hg) emissions from the conference facilities, travel, meals, lodging, utilities, and other potential energy use connected to the conference. The pre-event estimates of the event emissions and offset achievements are posted on Leonardo Academy's Cleaner and Greener® website (www.cleanerandgreener.org). Following Greenbuild, the emissions and offset achievements will be updated to include the actual event attendance and additional donations made during the event. Starting with Greenbuild 2007 events that are Cleaner and Greener® Certified will have emissions and offsets quantified using methodology referencing the LEO 5000-2001 Draft American National Standard for Trial Use on Emission Inventories, Offsets and Emission Reductions, the EPA Climate Challenge and USGBC credit interpretations on emissions and emission offsets.
Michael Arny said, "There is an important new idea for all of us to think about in addressing climate change. This idea is that keeping carbon sequestered in existing forests is just as important for total carbon sequestered in forests as sequestering carbon in newly planted forests. The math is simple: the carbon sequestered in Preserved forests, plus Maintained working forest, plus newly planted forests = Total Carbon Sequestered!"