Local Governments from across BC have demonstrated strong leadership in signing on to the Climate Action Charter and committing to work toward reducing GHG emissions and taking actions to make their communities more complete, compact and energy efficient.
Since 2007, the joint Provincial – UBCM Green Communities Committee (GCC), has worked with local governments to assist them in achieving these goals, including developing a common approach for carbon neutrality.
In 2011, the GCC established the Carbon Neutral Framework for BC local governments that included four steps: measure, reduce, offset/balance and report and two types of projects – Option 1 and Option 2 projects – that local governments can undertake to reduce GHG emissions within their communities as a way of balancing their corporate GHG emissions.
Option 1 projects are pre-defined projects approved by the GCC. Option 2 projects are projects proposed and undertaken by the local government and validated and verified by third parties. The GCC has previously developed and approved four Option 1 GHG reduction projects – supported by four related project profiles.
This GCC communiqué announces the fifth GCC-approved Option 1 project: the Avoided Forest Conversion Project (AFCP). The AFCP profile provides guidance on estimating the emission reductions associated with preventing the conversion of existing forested lands to a non-forest land use, such as residential development, development of a golf course, etc.
The accompanying GCC Carbon Calculator enables local governments with forested lands under 650ha in size to estimate the carbon benefit they would realize by protecting a portion of those lands from deforestation and development.
Download
Download the AFCP profile here and GCC Carbon Calculator here - they can also be found on the BC Climate Action Toolkit Carbon Neutral page: www.toolkit.bc.ca/cnlg (Under the HOW tab).
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