EURid compensates CO2 emissions through wind turbine construction
Brussels, 23 January 2014 - To compensate for the CO2 emissions of its offices in 2012, EURid, the registry for the .eu top-level domain, has purchased verified CO2 credits that will go towards the construction of 75 wind turbines in the region of Gujarat, India.
“We made a commitment to greening the environment by embracing the Environmental Management and Audit Scheme philosophy in 2012. The CO2 compensation effort is part of our EMAS plan that consists of nine objectives and 41 actions to achieve them,” commented .eu’s External Relations Manager Giovanni Seppia. “We are pleased to be the first European registry to reduce its CO2 emissions and we look forward to making this a best practice in our industry.”
In total the turbines will generate 59.4 MW of clean energy which will displace the electricity produced by fossil fuel-based electricity plants in the same country. One of the project’s strengths is the great proactive participation of the local community.
Calculating .eu’s carbon footprint
To calculate the emissions of its offices during 2012, EURid audited its paper and energy consumption for heating, air conditioning, transport and the use and end-of-life phases of the average .eu domain name.
Based on the audit review, performed by RINA Services S.p.A., an independent third party which declared the audit conform in November 2013, EURid’s carbon footprint emissions for 2012 were 11.13 kg CO2 eq. per .eu domain name.
The study to assess the registry’s CO2 emissions was performed following a “company approach”, meaning that data collection and system modelling were performed separately for each of the registry’s four offices for the 2012 period. GHG aircraft emissions were taken into account where appropriate, but were separately accounted for as required by ISO/TS 14067. All figures were then divided by the actual production of the reference product (one .eu domain name) and accounted per functional unit (one .eu domain name).
Together with the compensation of CO2 emissions, EURid will follow the recommendations that were produced during the audit, including a commitment to reduce energy consumption where possible and use greener means of transport. Both recommendations are also part of the registry’s EMAS plan for 2012-2015.
EURid will start assessing its 2013 CO2 emissions in Q1 2014, with the goal of compensating them by the end of Q2 2014. For more information about EURid’s commitment to going green please visit our Going Green page.
