Aviva, the UK’s largest insurer and one of Europe’s leading providers of life and general insurance partnered with climate and development experts ClimateCare, to develop a new way to measure and report the full impact of offsetting Aviva’s carbon emissions through ClimateCare’s ‘Climate and Development’ projects.
Now, for the first time, Aviva has been able to robustly measure and report on the additional benefits its carbon offset programmes have had on local communities using the LBG Framework – a peer reviewed methodology which quantifies and measures corporate community investment, developed with ClimateCare.
Although Aviva has been carbon neutral for many years, this new methodology reveals that in the last two years alone, Aviva’s carbon offset programme has positively impacted the lives of more than 200,000 people through two projects – LifeStraw Carbon for Water in Kenya and Envirofit Efficient Stoves in India.
Zelda Bentham, Head of Environment and Climate Change at Aviva, said; “We have always been committed to offsetting our environmental impacts, but we also wanted to make sure our programmes delivered a broader community impact.
“Using this methodology we can demonstrate the full value of offsetting our carbon emissions. In the last two years we’ve offset 126,555 tonnes of carbon emissions through two environmental projects, and that’s directly led to improvements in the lives of more than 200,000 people. It’s what our customers and investors expect so it’s really important we can credibly show this.”
Since it was founded in 1997, ClimateCare has become a world leader in dual impact ‘Climate and Development’ projects, which both reduce emissions and deliver measurable improvements for local communities and the environment.
“All our projects measurably improve people’s lives” explains ClimateCare Director, Edward Hanrahan, “Many, such as our efficient cookstove and water projects, which Aviva supports, are centred around people and vulnerable communities – providing safe water, improving health, creating jobs and stimulating local economies. Our clients see the value of taking an integrated approach to sustainability and we are always keen to help them talk about the full impacts of their actions in a robust and recognised way.”
In India 82% of the population cooks over a 3-stone open fire which is inefficient, smoky, and causes more than 480,000 deaths a year across the country. To solve this problem, Envirofit International, a clean energy social enterprise headquartered in the US, has invested in designing, testing, producing, and marketing, high quality clean energy cookstoves.
Envirofit’s replacement cookstoves significantly impact both health and the environment, reducing toxic emissions up to 80%, climate change emissions CO2 up to 60%, and black carbon up to 40%. The stoves also generate savings for the consumer by reducing fuel consumption up to 60% and improve cooking efficiency up to 40%. Carbon offsetting helps to subsidise the price of this technology, to make clean energy cookstoves more affordable to families across India.
Measuring results
It is challenging and time consuming to measure and report the total number of people benefiting from any project and it is more challenging still to understand the depth and nature of those impacts. An added complication arises when trying to attribute impacts to the purchase of a specific volume of carbon reduction credits.
However in contrast to the majority of carbon reduction projects, many of ClimateCare’s projects cut carbon emissions by working directly with individual households and families. For example, by providing them with water filters so they no longer have to boil water on open fires, or selling subsidised cookstoves that use less charcoal, the projects cut toxic emissions, improve health and create jobs, as well as protecting the environment.
In order to measure the carbon reductions generated through these types of project, regular on-the-ground monitoring is necessary. This makes it cost effective to carry out robust measurement of social impacts at the same time, and means ClimateCare’s projects are ideal for organisations that want to deliver social impacts through their carbon reduction activity.
Developing the methodology
The LBG Framework is a peer reviewed methodology, which quantifies and measures corporate community investment. Already an LBG member, Aviva’s carbon offset programme was the case study against which this new measurement framework was developed.
