Eric, tell us about Verus Carbon Neutral. What does it do?

Verus Carbon Neutral helps businesses look at their carbon emissions and then learn how to turn them into an asset or at least reduce them from being a liability. What that means is that we help people figure out how much carbon they are creating ways to reduce it, ways to offset it, and ways to market reductions in carbon. So there’s a lot of different aspects of how people need to look at their effect on global warming and climate change and there’s a lot of ways they can benefit by looking at themselves relative to competitors relative to themselves prior years, things like that.

Could you give us some examples of how your clients benefit by reducing their carbon emissions?

Sure, we have had various clients who have done different things one interesting one is Carey Limousine. Carey Limousine realized that by running their business created a lot of carbon. They realized that the only way they can manage that or improve that is by offsetting it. They wound up offsetting their carbon emissions and becoming carbon neutral. By becoming Carbon Neutral, they wound up getting more business from the city of Atlanta and other clients because they have been able to show a commitment to helping the environment. We also work with a company called Chomarat North America who manufactures a building product. The company felt their manufacturing process and the use of their building product was less Carbon Dioxide intensive as compared to their competition. The company contracted Verus to do a life cycle analysis to show that compared to competitors they are a greener solution. So, we helped them do that. Another client, M33, is a logistics company, which again figures out ways to help companies reduce the amount of carbon they are creating from shipping and distribution. By helping the logistics company explain to their clients how their actions are reducing carbon emissions the clients can explain it to the end supplier, let’s say Wal-Mart, it helps them get more business and show that they have a commitment to being greener. So those are a few of the ways we’ve helped people look at their carbon and manage it and turn it into an asset.

I understand that you have a seat on the Chicago Climate Board of Exchange, how does that relate to your mission of making your clients carbon neutral?

We are members of the Chicago Climate Exchange and everything we do and trade has been through the Chicago Climate Exchange. By using the Chicago Climate exchange, a buyer can understand and have confidence that these offsets are real and registered. We wanted to find a place wherein you could have that level of comfort and the Chicago Climate Exchange is the only exchange that is doing third-party verification of carbon offsets in the United States. When you buy something on the Chicago Climate Exchange, it has been verified and certified and going through a registrar process where they are being counted so, we have a lot of confidence that way. Additionally, it’s a market price and carbon is a commodity so the advantage of that is we’re not sitting here dealing with different prices at all different times; there’s a screen where carbon offsets trade just like any other commodity; soybeans or corn. It is a great opportunity to find a clearing mechanism, a technological based trading platform and on top of that confidence that what you are buying is priced correct.

How do you think that the Waxman/Markey bill or some other similar emissions cap in trade legislation would affect your business?

I believe it would be terrific for our business. First, we are supportive of any kind of cap and trade bill because we believe that that is the best way to reduce carbon emissions in the environment from the United States. Additionally, we think that businesses are often unsure of what their next steps are or on top of that don’t understand it. I think the more understanding and information that’s out there the better. We love a market price. We love the concept that if there’s a cap in trade market under mandatory cap-and-trade market, we’re going to see more trading and a more realistic price we’re gong to see more projects come online, more funding for technologies and projects to reduce carbon emissions and all that’s going to just increase the robustness of an existing market. We also think that the advantages to looking at people’s carbon footprints and lifecycle analyses and all that is going to be ramped up as there is the cap-and-trade bill because people are going to want to define their carbon contribution and they’re going to have to under a mandated market. I think businesses will need companies like Verus to help them do that.

What do you think is the most interesting project you’ve handled so far for becoming carbon neutral?

Well there are two. We’ve had a bunch of offset projects that are quite interesting including truck stop electrification where in you can put truckers instead of running their trucks at night wind up pulling in an apparatus into their window, which can give them heating or air conditioning and electrical connection. They can do television, internet all that and therefore they can turn off their trucks and not create carbon at night, that’s a kind of an interesting one. Also, we’ve seen a MIT professor who invented an algae that eats up carbon and grows in a brick form and you can put that into a fire and basically create energy from the growth of this algae that’s already taken carbon out of the air those are some interesting projects. What we’ve also seen we’ve just had the benefit on a client basis of taking people carbon neutral where we’ve looked at they’ve had big trucking fleets and we’ve helped them identify a bio-diesel solution for their trucks. We’ve helped some people change some lighting fixtures; we’ve dealt with people who have put up solar panels; so there have been many people who’ve changed their ways of doing business.

We also did have one very interesting client, Half Moon Outfitters that looked at its employee commutes and offset their employee commutes. Their employees had a lot of energy around looking at their footprints. The employees looked at it like a competition to see who could have the lowest carbon commutes and people were biking and carpooling and doing whatever they could to reduce themselves. So it was used as a method of motivating employees and getting more buy in within the company. So there’s been a lot of interesting reactions to going carbon neutral.

Since we’re a renewable energy website, I have to ask: How does carbon neutrality impact the renewable energy business?

Well, as you probably know, when you use renewable energy it can create either a carbon offset or a renewable energy credit. Right now, if you’re a seller, prices look good for renewable energy credits. Renewable energy projects are would benefit from listing or registering as carbon offsets because under a mandated market the expectation is the prices would be more competitive for carbon offsets coming from renewable energy projects. We also see the ability to fund using forwards and the futures markets as a great opportunity. This is becoming more established in the carbon offset markets. So if you realize that your renewable energy project is going to create a certain number of carbon offsets you can use it as a financing tool by either selling options, selling futures and basically looking at what your creation of carbon offsets will be so that you can use some funding options.

You and I had spoken about carbon futures before, I know, as a theoretical model they have some promise but have you seen any of those deals actually getting closed and funded?

There’s definitely some open interest and there have been some futures deals done on the Chicago Climate Exchange. But as of yet it is very early stages we’re not seeing significant volume but some small volume.

Thanks so much for speaking with us today. I’m sure our readers will be interested in hearing more in the future.