Programme for clean environment policy being taken seriously

Mamuni Das

The trend of events going carbon neutral has caught up over the past 2-3 years, particularly in Europe.

New Delhi, July 2

Concerns about clean environment seem to have ingrained so deeply that it is now the time for carbon neutral films after carbon neutral sports events and carbon neutral conferences.

Producers of a documentary that features Mr Al Gore, former US Vice-President have said that they would take steps to offset entire carbon dioxide emissions caused due to air travel, ground transportation, hotel use for production and promotional activities associated with the documentary. The documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, produced by Paramount Productions and Participant Productions, had hit the theatres about a month ago.

NativeEnergy, a marketer of renewable energy-based carbon credits, calculated the carbon emissions due to production and plans to offset emissions by funding renewable energy projects.

Another movie that went carbon neutral was Syriana produced by Warner Brothers and Participant Productions. NativeEnergy calculated the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from all of Syriana's production activities, including filming, air travel, rental car and truck emissions, hotel energy use, diesel generators used on location, office and warehouse energy use, and emissions from shipping. The organisation then offset those emissions by purchasing renewable energy credits from renewable energy projects.

Experts point out that the trend of events going carbon neutral has caught up over the past 2-3 years particularly in Europe. "It's not just limited to films, even music bands like Cold Play have gone carbon neutral," said Mr Robert Taylor, Director, Agrinergy.

"More and more international events are going carbon neutral to make a statement about their responsibility towards environment," said Ms Pamposh Bhat, Head, GTZ CDM-India.

"The trend started about 2-3 years ago in Europe. But now, almost all major events, including the FIFA World Cup are going carbon neutral," said Mr Sudipta Das, Partner, Ernst & Young. "We have been receiving queries from European countries, including Switzerland and have helped them fund some Asian projects," Mr Das said.

ADB's Clean Energy Week conference held in Manila in June-end and the UN's climate change conference in Montreal were carbon neutral.

For ADB's conference where major players in the Asian energy sector discussed energy issues and climate change, the organisers calculated emissions from flights carrying participants, their taxi rides from the airport, electricity for hotel rooms, preparation of meals, lighting and air conditioning at the meeting.

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