Pessoal,

me desculpem pelo post em ingles, mas quem puder ler, acho que está bem alinhado com o tema deste blog.
Escrevi isso tudo para responder a um ex-colega de mestrado que quer neutralizar o impacto ambiental da CIA dele, que é de software.

Vejam abaixo o que lhe respondi:



> Hi Richard,
>
> Im glad you asked me this question:
> I knew that if someone would ever make me this question, it would be you!
>
> There is no easy answer for this question. Im gonna try to give you a
> Climate Change perspective, although our footprint is much bigger than
> CO2 emission levels: heavy metals emissions, acid rain and etc are not
> on kyoto´s framework.
>
> There a very different options in the market today to neutralize your
> footprint, and everybody is currently trying to figure out what solution
> fits to different problem. One thing is for certain: one size does not
> fits all.
>
> As a services/software company like yours (which has typically a clean
> operations), your company´s footprint would be greatly related to
> Vancouver utilities provider footprint: electricity (grid emission
> factor), water treatment (COD) and municipal waste (Methane); and also
> related to your transportation consumption (air and land travelling).
> You could also go further on the value chain, and say that your impact
> is also related to the products you buy (for example: if the computer
> manufacturer that sells equipment for you is clean). In this sense, the
> only thing you could do to actually improve your footprint is to
> implement efficiency measures and reduce the consumption of those dirty
> resources. This would improve not only the level of corporate
> responsability, but also would bring monetary savings, as you would have
> lower expenses levels. Although this has a direct impact on the bottom
> line, there is a limit to where you can get (you still need to turn your
> computer on). Once you have implemented these efficiencies there will
> still be a portion of impact you cannot eliminate. Then, you should look
> for compensating measures.
>
> There are a wide range of "ecosecurities" in the market, and each one fo
> them has its own particular objective - from kyoto's AAU/EUA/CERs (which
> serve for compliance with kyoto's targets and thus are more expensive
> due to the bigger stringent requirements and validation and verification
> and other bureocratics) up to voluntary markets VERs (a broad range of
> securities which dont serve for compliance under kyoto). My personal
> opinion is that you must look for projects that bring environmental
> benefit, but that are also related in someway to your core business: in
> this way you also help your industry to become cleaner.
>
> You could also neutralize your footprint planting trees on your yard. I
> find this very little beneficious for the environment, although it does
> has a level of CO2 sequestration. But there is no reduction of fossil
> fuel consumption, there is no biodiversity increase and it is very low
> sustainable: if you sell this land tomorrow, your benefit is gone.
>
> EcoSecurities has recently put up a team to calculate footprint for
> companies outside the Kyoto framework, and neutralizing it. I will
> forward this email to them tomorrow. Im not involved on it now. Probably
> they are going to charge you consulting fee + VERs. Im sure they are
> able to offer you a complete solution.
>
> We did neutralize EcoSecurities footprint in 2006. It costed us aprox
> 1,5k credits (VERs) which is a very reasonable cost, taking into account
> that we travel a lot by plane ( I personally went to EU, Argentina a
> couple of times and several others around Brazil), and that we have 32
> offices around the world. For a services company, Im sure this cost will
> be very low.
>
> Does this answers your question? Is it OK if I send your mail to my
> colleagues?
>
> How are things going??
>
>
> Saludos - Regards - Um abraço
> -----------------------------------
> Paulo Felipe Catran Kessler
> www.paulokessler.hpg.com.br