Carbon credits for home energy efficiency: too little too late?
During the first weeks of the year, I went through the internet published wisdom regarding what carbon credit trading could do for home energy efficiency measures. My gut feeling up to then had been that this must be a great source of additional funding for any initiative aimed at increasing the energy efficiency of residential buildings. After all, the by now ubiquitous Vattenfall / McKinsey graph showed us that building insulation was the lowest hanging fruit of all; surely it must then also be the most rewarding way to generate carbon credits? I discussed the issue with Max Horstink, Innovation manager at OneCarbon , a leading developer of carbon credits projects all over the world. He explained to me the opportunities and pitfalls of creating carbon credits, pointing out to me that in various countries, it was realistic to assume that carbon credits could be issued for a larger scale renovation of an existing building, provided the political will was there to consider such a project eligible. We both agreed that the key point was to quantify the amount of CO2 saved per dwelling, and with this number calculate the final monetary reward that could be created using the carbon credit trading scheme.
Thus, we ended our conversation in a very upbeat way. However, my enthusiasm sunk to below sea level when I went on to quantify the CO2 savings per home. Depending on the source, the type of dwelling and the region where it stands, we were talking about 1 to 3 tons of saved CO2 per year. Even at the highest trading rate of some 30 euros per ton per year, we’d be talking about 100 euros per dwelling per year at the most. And taking a more conservative perspective on the effect of insulation and the trading price of carbon credits, this 100 euros melts away to no more than 20-30 euros annually. Compare that to the investment required to insulate a whole home (walls, floor, windows and ceiling / roof; some three to five thousand euros for a 70 m2 appartment or a mid size semidetached house) and you quickly realize that no home owner will change her or his mind regarding the investment to make, merely by being dazzled by the impact of the carbon credits that could be emitted. It’s not significant enough. Especially if you consider that the energy bill cut would amount to 200 – 400 euros annually anyway.
How to change this? Your opinions are appreciated.
hablar