B.C. company hooks up with Vanoc as official supplier of carbon offsets

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee has announced an estimated $5-million partnership with B.C.-based carbon-offset firm Offsetters Clean Technology to help it stage a carbon-neutral Olympics next year.

The new sponsorship makes the 2010 Winter Games the first in Games history to have an official supplier of carbon offsets.

Offsetters becomes an official Olympic supplier by providing Vanoc with offset projects that will reduce at least 110,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. The company will also work with Games partners, sponsors and participants to offset an additional 190,000 tonnes of Games-related emissions caused mainly by air travel.

The David Suzuki Foundation has estimated the Games will produce about 110,000 tonnes of direct carbon emissions and another 220,000 tonnes of indirect emissions from air travel.

Offsetters president James Tansey said his company will work with B.C. firms such as Nexterra, Sempa Power, Lignol Innovations, Ballard Power and Powertech to create clean-technology projects that will neutralize Games emissions. Proposed projects include fuel-cell technology in transit buses, energy efficiency systems, biomass gasification and hydrogen fuelling stations.

Tansey said Offsetters has essentially underwritten 110,000 tonnes of offsets for Vanoc and remains "very confident" it can convince Games sponsors and participants to offset the additional 190,000 tonnes.

Offsetters receives sponsorship rights in the official supplier category for the Games and for Canada's Olympic teams in 2010 and 2012.

bconstantin...@vancouversun.com

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