Make it Carbon Neutral
Certification Standard
Make it Carbon Neutral certification is for businesses that want to be able to offer their products and services as carbon neutral when requested by their customers.
Make it Carbon Neutral (MICN)
Carbon Reduction Institute’s Make it Carbon Neutral (MICN) certification enables businesses to offer their customers the option of making their purchases carbon neutral; usually at the point of sale.
For businesses who want to offer carbon neutral products which aren’t expected to be traded in high volumes, or who want to ‘test the waters’ of going green, this is the perfect solution.
By applying a model of a product’s emissions, including a life cycle assessment (LCA), CRI reduces the burdens of cost, compliance and administration.
CRI uses a range of models to help reduce the cost of compliance.
As emission models used prior to carrying out a study make use of conservative assumptions, conducting a study will most likely reduce the required number of future offsets.
The other benefit of the MICN plan is the low cost, and no capital outlay required to get started.
“This is a great way to break down the barriers for people who might be nervous about a long-term sustainability commitment,” says Garth Mulholland, NOCO2 program customer manager at CRI.
CRI provides all of the support businesses require to offer their products as optionally carbon neutral through the MICN service.
Support includes:
- CRI completes the initial emissions calculations and provides carbon offset options and costs so that businesses know what their additional cost of sale is when a product or service is sold as carbon neutral through the MICN service
- At the end of each quarter CRI calculates and reconciles emissions and carbon offset requirements for all products sold during that quarter as MICN. All sales for each quarter are reported by product and client to CRI
- CRI purchases and retires sufficient carbon offsets to eliminate the emissions generated by all MICN sales for the quarter
- CRI issues certificates on a quarterly basis to MICN customers to confirm their purchases were carbon neutral, and provides logos for you to promote the MICN offer and for your customers to promote MICN purchases made. These logos must be used in accordance with our CRI Logo and Style Guide.
Who is already benefitting from MICN
By working together with CRI and its customers, Fuji Xerox Australia removed 136,437 tonnes of CO2-equivalent from the atmosphere between January 2012 and December 2014.
This equates to 60,995 cars taken off the road for one year, at the same time contributing to the purchase of 81,437 tonnes of rice husk in India.
As a total contribution over that period, Fuji Xerox product offsets facilitated the purchase of more than $4 million worth of biomass by an Indian biomass plant from its local farming community in Moradabad, India.
In addition to this, Fuji Xerox provided a sustainable solution for Cambodian households by purchasing 14,243 energy efficient cook stoves for communities across nine different regions.
Based on customer feedback, from mid-2016 Fuji Xerox has since made a change to offering the customer the off-set option of its entire range at the point of sale.
Aside from attracting a new ‘greener’ customer base, MICN certification has the added advantage of broadening a company’s tender options – more and more larger entities and governments are including references to sustainable products in their procurement plans.
For more information about the LCA process, and other carbon emission assessments, click here.
Contact us now about carbon emission assessments and MICN.
CALCULATE
We complete a carbon audit of your business to calculate its carbon footprint. Once your business is certified, audits are completed annually.
REDUCE
Your audit will highlight options for emissions reductions. Our simple to use, online reporting tools will help you track the reductions you have achieved.
OFFSET
Offsetting CO2 emissions is done by purchasing high quality carbon credits which are generated as a result of energy efficiency projects conducted around the world.