27 Photos from High Quality Carbon Projects
Since Cool Effect first stepped on the stage during COP 21 in 2015, we’ve worked with individuals, organizations, non-profits, and companies of all sizes to reduce their carbon footprint and have a sizable effect on global emissions — and we learned a lot in the process. Which is why now, seven years later, with over five million tonnes of carbon emission reduced and dozens of companies we’re proud to call our partners in the fight against climate change, we’d like to share a bit of what we’ve learned when it comes to the business of fighting for our planet’s future.
Now as we count down the days until we will be meeting again in Egypt, we are shining a light on carbon projects that are verifiably reducing carbon emissions and creating real change in communities around the world, reinforcing the good on the ground.
This Blue Carbon project works to plant mangroves which saves the shorelines and removes carbon while helping the locals thrive through the help of the local population working and adapting sustainable lifestyle practices. Carbon funds bring prosperity to the local communities while the mangroves remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
1. Wild elephant in mangrove forest — Myanmar
2. Livelihood around climate park — Myanmar
3. Overwashed mangrove forest — Myanmar
4. Nursery process — Myanmar
5. Mangrove Stand Alone — Myanmar
Breath of Fresh Air (Honduras)
This project constructs cookstoves in rural homes that provide clean air and health benefits to the families. After families get a cookstove, they receive three follow-up visits to ensure the stove was installed and working correctly. Families save money by purchasing less wood or save time by gathering less wood, ridding the house of smoke, cooking faster, and helping save our planet.
6. Team Holiday Photo — Honduras
7. Beautiful new clean cookstove — Honduras
8. Tortilla Maker — Honduras
9. Mom and Daughter with new beautiful brick stove — Honduras
10. New stove build in progress — Honduras
Grasslands store one-third of all carbon on the planet, which is nearly the amount of carbon as all rainforests and forests combined. These grasslands are being destroyed at an alarming rate, which is why Cool Effect created the Colorado based Home on the Range project. This project protects native grasslands across the Great Plains through protecting the land from conversion to agriculture, while millions of tonnes of CO2 are stored in the grass and the soil.
11. Home on the Range —Colorado
12. Phase 3 spring — Colorado
13. Phase 3 rock pools — Colorado
14. Buffalo from above—Colorado
15. Phase 3 Outcrop —Colorado
The Giving Trees — TIST (Kenya & Uganda)
This project helps small communities plant trees to create a nature-based carbon removal system that helps train leaders and pull families out of poverty. The sale of carbon credits provides income and funding to address a variety of challenges faced by the local community including agricultural and nutritional deficiencies, HIV/AIDS education, clean cooking, and fuel availability.
16. The Giving Trees — Kenya & Uganda
17. Community members near The Giving Trees project— Kenya & Uganda
18. A local community member tends to his livestock — Kenya & Uganda
19. Members of the community planting trees — Kenya & Uganda
The Mare Chicose landfill project collects and flares landfill gas and generates electricity and involves the installation of an active landfill gas collection system, an enclosed flare system, and a modular electricity generation system. By capturing the methane being released from the landfill, the project is supplying the island of Mauritius with clean, renewable energy instead of shipping in dirty coal.
20. Reducing the amount of trash that makes it to local landfills — Mauritius
21. Less trash in landfills means less methane released into the atmosphere — Mauritius
22. Cleaner, greener, and using far fewer fossil fuels — Mauritius
23. Quick shot of some of the infrastructure needed to flare or repurpose methane—Mauritius
24. More improved infrastructure means more independence and less reliance on imported coal—Mauritius
Seeing the Forest for the Trees—Mexico
This small community-based Improved Forestry Management project encourages residents to preserve and grow the biomass in their standing forests despite multiple opportunities to cut trees for profit or for increased grazing opportunities. This community-based initiative will allow the community to diversify its income and contribute to reduced carbon emissions.
25. A well-maintained road thanks to the team’s efforts — Mexico
26. Hiking through the forest for some hands-on training — Mexico
27. On-site training in sustainable forest management — Mexico
