About
South Pole is one of the world’s leading high quality carbon offsetting companies with ten offices around the globe. In over 20 countries, South Pole has enabled the implementation and operation of high-quality projects that reduce greenhouse gases. Their portfolio comprises projects in the fields of renewable energy, forestry, energy efficiency, waste management, methane avoidance, and many other sectors.
In the summer of 2006 five young entrepreneurs from a scientific, economic, and environmental background teamed up in Zurich to found South Pole. Their vision was, and is, to bring together people from innovative NGOs, multinational organizations and top notch business consultants to create a distinctive mix of minds which you need to address a challenge like climate change. So the founders of myclimate joined hands with former World Bank officers, UNFCCC experts and McKinsey consultants to realize the joint vision: use market mechanisms to foster sustainable greenhouse gas abatement projects.
Starting as a spin off from ETH (Swiss Institute of Technology), South Pole started growing from day one; within a few months, their first satellite offices in Bangkok and Beijing were established. Over the years, the penguin logo has spread over nearly all continents, taking South Pole to Indonesia, Taiwan, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam.
In 2010, they opened up the latest satellite in India, which is where South Pole started its first project Malavalli four years ago. The connection between then and now is their commitment to premium quality: Malavalli was the first project to issue Gold Standard credits. It has set standards in its sector and is now part of their rich Gold Standard portfolio. Today, South Pole is market leader in issued Gold Standard VERs.
In December 2008, South Pole secured a minor investment from BP Alternative Energies. At a similar range, in the summer of 2010, a Swiss family office (Corisol Holding AG), stepped aboard to drive further their and South Pole's engagement against climate change.
After four years, they are now among the top carbon companies in the world, renowned for their high quality pipeline, and on the forefront of PoA and forestry development. In addition, they broadened their range of services with the most transparent and trustworthy emission reduction webshop in the market, and with their new service calculating and offsetting the emissions of funds and holdings.
They chose the penguin as their heraldic animal for its natural habitat at the South Pole and for its seventeen species' famous ability to adapt to different climate zones.
Strategy
South Pole Carbon is operating climate neutrality and developing carbon offsets to allow a range of other companies and institutions to become climate neutral too. By far, most of their own emissions come from international travel which they cannot avoid due to thier international business. They only fly economy class.
South Pole Carbon is an office based company. Most of their own emissions therefore come from air travel. They are minimising this impact by the following means:
- Extensive use of online communication tools for meetings.
- They fly only economy class.
- They compensate all their flights with Credits from one of their Gold Standard, Land Fill Gas Projects.
They also manage their office emissions by means such as recycling, energy efficient computer equipment and avoidance / reduction of A/C whenever feasible. Their main climatic impact is through the services they provide for their clients. South Pole Carbon is developing 150 emission reduction projects worldwide generating millions of emission reduction credits.
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