Bricks and Roof titles produced at CGM.

Sustainable community development is seldom a focal point for a ceramic factory operating in underdeveloped areas of Brazil, but one ceramic facility has found a way to reprioritize this initiative, while managing to increase productivity and reduce its negative impact on the environment.

Situated in Crato, a city located in the state of Ceará, northeast Brazil, the ceramic facility Gomes de Mattos (CGM) produces products such as bricks and roof tiles for the local construction industry. In 2008, CGM partnered with Sustainable Carbon to stop using native forest wood as an energy source to fire its kilns and instead use renewable biomass – a more sustainable approach to production resulting in the creation of environmental commodities called carbon credits.

When asked about the motive for agreeing to such a project, Stephenson Ramalho de Lacerda, Forest Engineer at CGM said, “The ceramic sector always received pressure from society for having a lot of [negative] impact on the environment”.

“We saw the project as a way to reduce our environmental impact, and to improve energy efficiency [of the facility]. In this way, we tried to change the negative vision of the ceramic sector, while making socio-environmental improvements in the region”.

Before the project activity, CGM utilized approximately 22,800m³ of native wood annually to fire its kilns. This production system was directly contributing to the destruction of the fragile Caatinga ecosystem – an exclusively Brazilian biome that occupies around 10% of the country’s territory.  Although being rich in natural resources, the Caatinga is one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. This critical biome faces a strong threat of desertification and its deforestation increases this possibility. Furthermore, the loss of natural vegetation experienced, is leading to a change in the river flow, increasing the scarcity of water supply for local communities and farming.

By committing to the project, CGM is now contributing to the preservation of the Caatinga, managing to reduce its carbon emissions and invest revenue from the sale of the resulting carbon credits into sustainable, socio-economic development for the surrounding community.

To further compensate for its impact on the fragile Brazilian environment, CGM has become the first facility in the Brazilian ceramic industry to partner up with a GeoPark – an ecological territory with defined boundaries, which contains sites of high scientific value. As a partner of Araripe, the first GeoPark of the Americas, CGM provides financial support and educational tours for students and visitors of the park.  Such a partnership represents a quality stamp for companies which collaborate for the sustainable development of the region.

Besides affecting the owners’ attitude towards prioritizing environmental protection, CGM invests in education programs, provides medical support, and sponsors recreational events for community members.  CGM coordinates regular visits from educational institutions in the area, and organizes community events where doctors, dentists, and beauticians are connected with people who don’t have the means or access to such services. CGM also sponsors a local soccer team for employees to have a chance to compete in local championships.

“Being ecological is profitable” says Ronaldo Gomes de Matos, the owner of Ceramica CGM.

“Everything that we reinvest is coming from the carbon credit sales…we had return from everything we invested [in the project]“.

Matos’ comment suggests that an emission reduction project can actually bring additional benefits to employees and the surrounding community while keeping stakeholders satisfied and ensuring continued investment in sustainable development of the project area.

For more information or questions about Sustainable Carbon, or the renewable biomass fuel-switching project at Ceramica Gomes de Mattos, please contact Larissa Tega Fonseca at larissa@sustainablecarbon.com or visit our Projects Page at www.sustainablecarbon.com/Projects

I recently went on trip to the North of Brazil (São Miguel do Guamá, State of Pará, surrounded by the Amazonian tropical rainforest) with EcoAct. Together, we went to visit a Sustainable Carbon fuel-switching project at Cerâmica Menegalli, a manufacturer or brick and tiles. The purpose of the trip was to get to know the project and its social, economic and environmental benefits.

This trip was an amazing experience because during the two days we had the chance to:

• visit the Ceramic and understand its reality,
• get to know the local people,
• talk to the Mayor of São Miguel do Guamá, Márcia Cavalcante,
• learn about the actions of the city to protect the Amazon and the actions to improve the social conditions of the inhabitants of the city,
• visit a church and school partially financed by the ceramic owner. Meeting children at the school was particularly emotional as they had learned some French words and sang a nursery rhyme to us.

Read more about my experience in Sao Miguel do Guama here.

The study shows that in last year, the average transactions in the voluntary carbon market declined 26% to 94 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) compared to 2008. In monetary terms, negotiations declined 46.8% compared to 2008 to US$387 million. The transactions on the over-the-counter market, however, where SOCIALCARBON® + VCS credits are traded, decreased by 5.5% in volume and 22.4% in price compared to 2008.

Going up – On the other hand, the fuel switching segment, market which Sustainable Carbon is global leader, changed direction in the last year and managed a slight increase in its market share from 1% to 3% (1,1 million tCO2e). According to the research, SOCIALCARBON® credits managed a slight increase in its market share, from 1% to 1,3%, while Greenhouse Friendly, CDM/JI (Clean Development Mechanism / Joint Implementation) and VER+ all saw continued declines in transaction volumes. Combined, they captured less than 1% of the market.

Another sign of growth in the market was that SOCIALCARBON® credits stacked with VCS gained in price. Prices for these credits increased slightly, up 3% from 2008 to an average US$ 7,6 tCO2e in 2009. These projects were price above-average because of the extra social and environmental benefits that they bring to the business and communities where the projects take place.

“Our demand comes from companies seeking credits that have strong social and environmental benefits which complement most companies’ sustainability strategies,” says Stefano Merlin, CEO of Sustainable Carbon, a supplier of SOCIALCARBON credits.

Speaking to the robustness and desirability to use the Standard, the research also indicated that eleven project developers plan to use the SOCIALCARBON® standard in their projects this year.

The reason – The voluntary carbon market’s negative numbers can be attributed to two major challenges. First, in response to the global financial crisis, companies cut back on discretionary funding for corporate social responsibility initiatives, including offsetting emissions. And secondly, the prospects for new compliance demand remained uncertain. In 2009, suppliers reported a total volume of 93,7 mtCO2e transacted in the global voluntary carbon markets. Compared to the 126,6 mtCO2e transacted in 2008, volumes declined by 26% although 2009 market volumes were still 39% above 2007 levels. It is precisely this reason that the market remains bullish about prospects for growth in 2010.

Yet it is precisely this last winter’s turn of events that some formerly ardent climate change believers find themselves doubting their previous impermeable certainty. If the winter was so cold, yet the almanac says that (globally) it was a hot year, what are we to believe?

You are to believe that this is a direct result of climate change. Yes it was a snowy winter in the US; so much so, in fact, that the Capitol had not seen so much in decades. It snowed in Texas. It rained relentlessly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, causing deadly mudslides. Because your experience in, say, Washington DC could have been so different from what it usually is and so different from what someone experiences (and expects) in southeastern Brazil, scientists and communication experts prefer to use the term “climate change” instead of “global warming.”

But this is not enough to address the skeptics. So we would like to take the time to discuss the ways in which communicators (being of particular interest to this writer) are helping climate scientists convey their findings in ways that impact civil and political action.

The most interesting of these communicators is the visual artist Adam Nieman, a graduate in physics and philosophy from Edinburgh University. His work shows how much water the Earth actually has (surprisingly, really isn’t that much), how many greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions each country is responsible for (represented in a circular graph), and other scientific tidbits presented in a charismatic, visual manner. Andrew Revkin, a wonderful commentator on climate issues and sustainable development for the New York Times, comment on Mr. Nieman’s work and the potential impact it could have on young minds in shaping the climate change debate for generations to come.

This book picks up where the other left off: addressing biodiversity issues through the Social Carbon concept. At the heart of the Social Carbon methodology, which was developed by Divaldo Rezende and Stefano Merlin after they co-founded the Instituto Ecológica, is the belief that communities can harmonize economic activity and development with the surrounding environment. “Social Carbon” is carbon dioxide that is sequestered or prevented from entering the atmosphere by collective community action that improve quality of life while combating climate change. By keeping the surrounding environment intact, communities on the front lines of climate change have better livelihoods than they would have if they destroy the environment in order exploit its resources.

In this book, the focus is on how biodiversity is maintained and thrives via the Social Carbon methodology. The methodology provides a framework by which communities in developing countries can sustainably develop while combating climate change and preventing species loss.

If you are interesting in purchasing this book for research or general interest, contact the publisher, Environmental Finance.

While we have changed our name, our comittment to sustainably developing tens of communities throughout South America via greenhouse gas emission reduction projects has not. We still have Stefano Merlin as our CEO and we are still a joint-venture with CantorCO2e, part of the Cantor Fitzgerald family of companies.

What is new, though, is our site! Now you can take a look at our projects, and we have a glossary of sustainable development terms with various links to great sites and sources of information.

Our blog is young (this is our first post) but we know you will come to find The Sustainable Carbon Blog a great source of information on all topics related to sustainable development, the international carbon market, biodiversity preservation and much more.

Welcome to the new Sustainable Carbon | Climate Solutions!