- Councils and charities to benefit from new ERF method
- Market strategy emerges for early ERF project payments
- More NGER streamlining on the way
Councils and charities to benefit from new ERF method
A new Emissions Reduction Fund methodology will allow organisations to earn carbon credits by separating out organic waste so it doesn't go to landfill.
Potential beneficiaries include companies issuing new food waste bins to commercial premises, councils expanding a voluntary green waste services to all households within their local government area and charities working with supermarkets to redistribute surplus food.
Collected organic waste must be composted, digested anaerobically or engineered into fuel. Diverted surplus food must be distributed to a registered charity for consumption.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt gazetted the method this week.
Market strategy emerges for early ERF project payments
Under the terms of its contracts with successful Emissions Reduction Fund bidders, the Clean Energy Regulator only pays companies when they deliver carbon abatement – but one consultancy has come up with a way to provide them with an earlier revenue stream.
According to Ndevr Environmental managing director Matt Drum, the 'pay on delivery' terms can result in a delay of between 15 and 18 months from commissioning before a company receives any ERF revenue, which is a significant barrier to participation.
However, Ndevr (through a subsidiary) has teamed with a global carbon trading desk that holds an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) to deliver payments from the time of project commissioning.
Drum declined to name the trader at this stage, but told Footprint it was "active in most international environmental markets".
Ndevr in conjunction with the trading desk will make payments from the point of commissioning, Drum said.
Companies will pay a premium to access funds earlier, but gain the advantage of payment from project initiation, he said.
That response to the concept so far has been "very positive", he said.
More NGER streamlining on the way
The Department of Environment is proposing changes to regulations for Australia's NGER emissions reporting scheme that would make procedures for deregistering auditors more flexible.
The proposed amendments to the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Regulations would also broaden the range of people who can act as a referee for those seeking registration as an auditor.
The amendments would abolish the requirement to list the addresses of small facilities for which they are providing aggregated data and would adjust provisions on reporting electricity produced and generated.
They would also ensure emissions from the use of international bunker fuels don't have to be reported.
Comment closes on February 19.
