The Lucio Tan Group, as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental stewardship program, is embarking on a second clean development mechanism (CDM) project.
Dr. Lucio Tan, representing Foremost Farms Inc., signed Tuesday a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Mitsubishi Corp. to undertake a feasibility study on a CDM project for two piggery farms.
Tan’s Foremost Farms is the biggest commercial hog producer in the country with a population of 100,000 heads. Hog excrement produces methane gas that can be harnessed and processed to generate electricity.
The feasibility study will take three months to complete, after which Foremost and Mitsubishi work out the financial investment needed to undertake the CDM project.
The Foremost Farms CDM project is the second between the LT Group and Mitsubishi, which is ranked No. 3 among the world’s top CDM project developers.
In a brief interview with reporters, Dr. Tan said that his companies want to reduce their carbon emissions and help in the global effort to reverse global warming.The LT Group’s first CDM project with Mitsubishi Corp. was for Absolut Chemicals, Inc.
The Absolut project involves the conversion of distillery waste from Tanduay Distillers, Inc. into methane gas, replacing bunker fuel to fire the distillery’s boilers.
The Absolut Chemicals CDM project is projected to reduce by 96,000 tons the company’s carbon dioxide emissions.
The CDM is a central feature of the Kyoto Protocol which was agreed upon by participants in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement among participating countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions which has led to dramatic climate change.
To help countries meet their emission targets, and to encourage the private sector and developing countries to contribute to emission reduction efforts, negotiators of the protocol included three market-based mechanisms – emissions trading, the CDM and joint implementation.
The CDM allows emission-reduction (or emission removal) projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits which can be traded and sold, and used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.
CER or carbon trading is a mechanism intended to stimulate sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialized countries some flexibility meeting their emission reduction limitation targets.
Developed countries that cannot or do not want to reduce their own emissions, offer to finance less developed countries to undertake CDM projects in exchange for the CER credits.
CDM projects must qualify through a rigorous public registration and issuance process designed to ensure real, measurable and verifiable emission reductions that are additional to what would have occurred without the project. The mechanism is overseen by a CDM executive board.
To be considered for registration, a project must first be approved by a designated national authority (DNA).
Operational since the beginning of 2006, the mechanism has registered more than 1,000 projects and is anticipated to produce CERs amounting to more than 2.7 billion tons of CO2 equivalent in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, 2008–2012.
It is the first global, environmental investment and credit scheme of its kind, providing a standardized emissions offset instrument or CERs.