Camden pioneering a new approach to carbon offsetting
Camden council, in partnership with Retrofit Credits, is pioneering a new approach to carbon offsetting for businesses and organisations in the borough to create further climate investment for Camden.
Retrofit Credits allows Camden based organisations to offset their residual carbon emissions locally by purchasing carbon credits secured directly from energy efficiency improvements made to social housing in Camden.
The health and wellbeing benefits of the energy efficiency improvements are also calculated and reported using metrics developed by the UK Social Value Bank.
I am delighted that Camden is partnering with the social housing charity, HACT and carbon accounting specialists, Arctica on this ground-breaking local carbon offset model.
We have an ambition to make all of Camden’s social housing zero carbon, and a model that allows local organisations to offset emissions locally in a transparent and fully verified way, will provide invaluable financial support for this transition.
Camden is one of twenty-two social housing providers to have benefitted from the carbon credit pilot, which will generate around £100,000 this year.
Over the next twenty years, it is forecast that the credits generated through the pilot will raise over £7 million that can be reinvested back into retrofit works across the social housing providers who are partners.
Following the success of the pilot, Camden will be partnering with Retrofit Credits to release further tranches of carbon credits for purchase later this year.
Camden’s involvement in the pilot was supported by the Mayor of London’s Future Neighbourhood programme.
Full details on how investors can purchase the next round of credits for Camden Social Housing projects will be posted through the Camden’s environmental business network, the Camden Climate Alliance over the summer.