Fortum offsets air travel by supporting wind power projects in China
Fortum has compensated for the CO2 emissions from its air travelling during
2007. Accrued emissions have been offset by certified emission reducing measures
in developing economies. In practice this means support for two Chinese wind
power projects via Tricorona Climate Partner AB.
In 2007 Fortum set a target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from air travel
by 10 per cent as part of its efforts to mitigate climate change. At the same
time, Fortum also decided to offset the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from
its personnel's air travel. In 2007 Fortum employees travelled almost 20 million
kilometres by air and the consequent greenhouse gas emissions totalled 5,300
tonnes.
"Fortum works hard to reduce its emissions," says Carola Teir-Lehtinen,
Corporate Vice President, Sustainability, "Air travel is one of the areas we can
influence. By introducing state of the art videoconferencing facilities we can
reduce air travel to internal meetings. When we do fly, however, our policy is
to offset the emissions with the best carbon credits available, and that's why
we chose Gold Standard CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) offsets.
The chosen projects are wind farms, in the Ningxia and Fujian provinces of
China. The projects consist of over 100 wind turbines with a total capacity of
ca 100 MW. Together, the projects are expected to generate almost 200 GWh
electricity per year and result in carbon dioxide emission reductions of over
180,000 tonnes annually. The projects also contribute to sustainable development
in their local areas by improving their infrastructure, reducing pollution and
providing new employment opportunities both during the construction and
operation phases. The plants became operational in late 2007 and were registered
for CDM and Gold Standard in early 2008.
The Gold Standard is an independent non-profit organisation, whose purpose is to
identify and certify the very best carbon offset projects. It is backed by over
50 NGOs from around the world and its two primary founding members are WWF
International and Greenpeace International.
Tricorona, headquartered in Stockholm, is a global leader in developing emission
reduction projects within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, with a portfolio
of over 68 millions of tons of emission reductions from over 150 projects.
Fortum Corporation
Corporate Communications
Further information:
www.fortum.com/sustainability
www.tricorona.se
Kari Kankaanpää, Manager, Climate Affairs
Tel. +358 10 45 32330
kari [dot] t [dot] kankaanpaa [at] fortum [dot] com