The American Carbon Registry works closely with its sister enterprise Environmental Resources Trust (ERT)  and through ERT with important initiatives such as the Offset Quality Initiative. 

Environmental Resources Trust

American Carbon Registry’s sister enterprise, Environmental Resources Trust (ERT-Winrock), is the technical foundation for the Registry. ERT and the American Carbon Registry work together to provide a one-stop-shop for carbon registry and technical services. ERT-Winrock’s carbon technical services include greenhouse gas corporate and project accounting, independent validation and verification and development of standards and customized protocols.
 
ERT-Winrock’s goal is to pioneer and harness the power of markets to improve local, regional, and global environments. ERT-Winrock specializes in substantiating the environmental attributes of a project or investment, transforming the benefits into environmental assets, and developing environmental markets for trading and tracking environmental assets.
 
Environmental Resources Trust is a partner in the Offset Quality Initiative (OQI).

Offset Quality Initiative 

The Offset Quality Initiative (OQI)  was founded in November 2007 to provide leadership on greenhouse gas offset policy and best practices. OQI is a collaborative, consensus-based effort that brings together the collective expertise of its six nonprofit member organizations: The Climate Trust, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Environmental Resources Trust, Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, The Climate Group and the California Climate Action Registry.
 

The four primary objectives of the Offset Quality Initiative are:

• To provide leadership, education, and expert analysis on the issues and challenges related to the design and use of offsets in climate change policy.
• To identify, articulate, and promote key principles that ensure the quality of greenhouse gas emission offsets.
• To advance the integration of those principles in emerging climate change policies at the state, regional, and federal levels.
• To serve as a source of credible information on greenhouse gas offsets, leveraging the diverse collective knowledge and experience of OQI members.

On July 28, 2008, the Offset Quality Initiative (OQI) released a white paper titled “Ensuring Offset Quality: Integrating High Quality Greenhouse Gas Offsets Into Cap-and-Trade Policy.” The document offers policymakers practical recommendations regarding the integration of greenhouse gas offsets into emerging regulatory systems at the state, regional and federal levels.
 
“The availability of high-quality offsets is key to containing the cost of climate policy while delivering real greenhouse gas emission reductions,” said Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “A rigorous and adaptable offset program design can ensure that offsets play a valuable role in an effective cap-and-trade system. OQI’s work will assist policymakers seeking to develop core components of a credible offsets program.”

In addition to regulatory design guidelines, the white paper addresses the key criteria for offset quality and discusses offset project types most appropriate for inclusion in emerging regulatory systems.

“Establishing confidence in the environmental integrity of offsets is critical for the successful launch and acceptance of future cap and trade regulatory systems. The goal of our paper is to provide policymakers with well-conceived and comprehensive recommendations for offset program design based on the collective knowledge and experience of the OQI members. Each nonprofit member of the coalition is a well-respected and established organization in climate change and brings valuable experience and knowledge to the group,” said Gary Gero, President of the California Climate Action Registry.