User:Ssikora.falcon/The Green Initiative

Lead
The Green Initiative is a private company founded in 2015 with several climate change initiatives and goals in mind. They are one of 24 companies accredited by the United Nations to provide relevant services. The Green Initiative's main objectives include the offsetting of greenhouse gases emitted by human activities, as well as with reforestation projects in riparian areas that need to be recovered. The trees planted from these projects will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and provide, as well as environmental benefits, such as water and air quality preservation, and biodiversity protection.

Company Team
The company operates mainly out of four countries: Brazil, France, Switzerland, and Peru. There are officers that head initiatives and services in each of the countries, as well as several other team members that facilitate operations.

Services
There are three main services the company offers to its customers: CO2 Footprint Management, Sustainable Climate Action, and Carbon Neutral Tourism Destinations. Each of these services, which are distinct from one another, are charged with acclimating society to a carbon-friendly society which leaves less of a footprint on the environment.

CO2 Footprint Management
This service helps clients manage their carbon footprint and evaluate how they can decarbonize any part of their operations. To start, Green Initiative calculate's a clients' current carbon footprint and applies those figures as a baseline, so improvement can be quantitatively demonstrated.

After baseline figures have been calculated, Green Initiative helps to generate action items that will help to lower the client's carbon footprint. These actions can take place immediately should the company follow the advice of Green Initiative. According to their website, some of these projects are taking place in critical areas of biodiversity, which are located in Peru and Costa Rica.

Next, should a company be successful in applying the advice and recommendations from Green Initiative, they will receive their Carbon Neutral certification. This publicly displays a client's ability to successfully reduce their carbon footprint and stick to such a plan.

Lastly, to sustain positive environmental change within a client's company, Green Initiative helps a clients employees understand carbon footprint reduction plans through internal communications. Additionally, Green Initiative ensures there is external awareness of a clients progress and success of becoming more environmentally conscious of their own operations.

Sustainable Climate Action
This particular service is the consulting arm of Green Initiative. Their consulting services help clients design sustainability polices, and ensure they are feasible, funded, executed, and evaluated after their implementation.

There are four areas of expertise the company provides its consulting services within. One area is their 'Resource Mobilization for Climate Finance.' Their consulting staff works with financial institutions, non-governmental organizations, and development agencies. They help to construct future climate models and create strategies focused from a financial feasibility standpoint.

Their second area of consulting focuses on 'Monitoring, Verification and Reporting.' Green Initiative helps clients with reporting any environmental initiatives they are undertaking, and ensure that they are meeting international standards.

Their third consulting specialty relates to the service mentioned previously, CO2 Footprint Management. Green Initiative works with their customers to calculate their carbon footprint, however, in this application, is more focused on a client's ongoing projects and their performance. The consulting piece comes in when Green Initiative makes recommendations to reduce their client's carbon footprint through existing operations, and is not as intensive as the CO2 Footprint Management service itself.

One final area of consulting is 'Midterm, final, and ex-post evaluations.' Should a company be undertaking a climate goal (does not have to be done through The Green Initiative), this form of consulting will help evaluate whether or not a company is meeting their set benchmarks. Should a company not be reaching their intermediate climate goals, Green Initiative can make suggestions to ensure their clients are back on track and can attain their prospective environmental goals in the long run.

Carbon Neutral Tourism Destinations
In 2014, the Brazilian Institute of Tourism Marketing joined forces with Green Initiative. This merger allowed Green Initiative to expand into the area of global tourism, as well as access to an important portfolio of clients. Some customers that the Brazilian Institute of Tourism Marketing were able to bring over include the International Labor Organization, the Hospitality Institute, and UNESCO. There are four areas of expertise Green Initiative is familiar within this particular service: Institutional Development, Planning of Marketing of Tourist Destinations, Employability, and Capacity building.

Institutional development helps prepare agents to initiate efforts in their own nations which promote investments for tourism and the growth of the industry. The agents, whether they work for a government or a private company, are prepared to ensure that all tourism offered is also rooted in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly method.

Planning and Marketing of Tourist Destinations is focused on a more financial aspect for attractive tourist destinations. Both economic and market studies are performed in order to better understand how a particular tourist area can be promoted. Additionally, the research Green Initiative takes on is geared towards ensuring all tourism done in these areas of nature are climate friendly and are accompanied by climate neutral products and services.

Employability in this field refers to the analysis Green Initiative runs to help young individuals and women find jobs in tourism. These analysis help find where jobs are needed the most, and how these jobs can help promote sustainable and climate-friendly tourism across the globe.

Lastly, capacity building trains those in the tourism sector around the world to grow their capacity for tourists, as well as improve their available services. Green Initiative's methodology-based trainings is focused particularly on young people, women, and unprotected populations globally.

Certifications
The main objectives of the certifications Green Initiative offers are to boost their clients' competitiveness in the environmental space. These certifications are a sound way to allow companies to better publicly elaborate and share their climate initiatives and progress made on such initiatives.

Carbon Neutral Certified

This particular certification is the main certification provided by the company. It recognizes a client's ability to go neutral on Greenhouse Gas emissions on all products and services that are offered.

Climate Neutral Now

Although the focus of this certification is not exclusively on carbon neutrality or Greenhouse Gas neutrality, it recognizes that a client has offset emission enough to fall in the range called for by the United Nations Kyoto Protocol.

Climate Positive Certified

Instead of a client demonstrating carbon neutrality, they have actually gone the extra step to show that their operations are leaving a positive impact on the environment. In other words, they are taking steps to help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Main Projects and Initiatives
The main objective of Green Initiative's projects is to work with industry leaders to create concepts and develop tools that can help combat climate change and promote sustainability.

ForestFriends (www.forestfriends.eco)

The ForestFriends project was launched in 2017 with the aim to catalyze carbon mitigation action for tourists. The project supports forest restoration and conservation efforts in biodiversity hotspots in Peru, Costa Rica, and Kenya. ForestFriends has a goal of planting 30 million trees by 2030. ForestFriends incorporates 3 of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their mission: #9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, #12 Responsible Consumption and Production, and #15 Life on Land. The project is led by Green Initiative in collaboration with key partners.

Carbon Neutral Now - www.carbonneutralnow.eco

This project aims to support businesses to engage into climate action, measuring, reducing and offsetting its carbon footprint. Green Initiative has led this project since 2015, having supported more than 50 companies. A main focus of this project is on the Amazon rainforest. Over the last 60 years, a staggering 19% of the forest has been vanished mainly due to livestock and agricultural development. Green Initiative promotes projects which ensure sustainable use of materials from the Amazon, as well as the forest can be conserved and ultimately help curb climate change.

Carbon Neutralization of the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Biological Diversity

The purpose of the project done by The Green Initiative is the neutralization of the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions related to the realization of the COP 8 through the reforestation of a degraded riparian area in the City of Curitiba. The Project will be realized in two stages and will demonstrate in a practical way a possibility to contribute at the same time to the Biodiversity and Climate Conventions.

Carbon Free CD

The Green Initiative is the first organization in Brazil to develop a carbon free album (Compact Disc).

The musician Txai Brasil released his first album which is the first in Brazil to have its carbon emissions neutralized by reforesting 1 ha of riparian area in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.

The production, distribution and usage of the 3,000 copies caused an emission of 5.4 tonnes of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere which will be absorbed by the reforestation of the riparian area.

Climate Action Observatory

Green Initiative publicly promotes its work, as well as climate action and good practices through three different forms of communication: a newsletter, blog, and podcast. The newsletter, which is written in Spanish, has not been updated since April 2020. The blog, on the other hand, does not have any date entries included with them. A wide range of topics are included in the blog, including the endangerment of crop species, the Green Initiative becoming an Ecosystems Restoration partner with the UN, and how COVID-19 and climate is impacting tourism. Lastly, the podcast link appears to be defunct and without any content.

Track Record
Agrobusiness

Focusing on cocoa production in Peru, Green Initiative Verde has collaborated with cocoa producers and exporters in order to reduce mitigate their carbon emissions. They work to implement better business practices in order to produce "climate-friendly" cocoa.

Institutional Development

Starting in 2015, The Green Initiative has been working on the BioComercio Andino project through Ecuador, Peru, and and Colombia. This initiative, funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), promotes the "conservation of biodiversity."

Resource Mobilization for Climate Finance

MDSL (Madre de Dios Sustainable Landscape Initiative) is an initiative working to improve local living standards in Madre de Dios, Peru, while also promoting conservation. Its goal is create a clear climate action plan and mitigation programs.

Carbon Neutral Events

CASACOR, climate action for largest architecture/design event in the Americas, provides a space where many such as artists, architects, and more can come together to share their unique plans.

International Education

Green Initiative has been working with CEPA since 2019 in order to develop climate responsibility programs. CEPA is a German foundation, and they have been collaborating on programs that pinpoint carbon footprints and promote carbon neutrality.

Carbon Neutral Tourism

Green Initiative has been working with Peruvian Association of Adventure Tourism, Ecotourism, and Specialized Tourism (APTAE) since 2015 to educate and present sustainable practices to tourism companies. They have worked with over 34 tourism companies and provide certificates companies can achieve to better their climate responsibility business practices.

Contact
Green Initiative can be contacted by phone and email at +51 1-422-89-98 or team@greeninitiative.eco, respectively.