Ball State University
IN-2: Innovation 2

For the last several years, Ball State University has piloted the development and implementation of a new methodology by which colleges and universities can qualify their carbon reductions for transaction in the voluntary carbon market. This work was stimulated by the commitment of funding from the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors under the banner of the Clean Energy Campus Campaign (as a part of its 8 million-metric-ton Carbon Reduction Initiative). Under this initiative, Chevrolet committed to the purchase of carbon reduction credits from colleges and universities with the intent of retiring them against the climate and not using them to offset its own corporate admissions. Developing the methodology, testing its application and implementing its use involved collaboration with Chevrolet, Climate Neutral Business Network (CNBN), Det Norske Veritas (DNV), Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), and Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF). Once operational the methodology was adopted by ten other colleges universities.

As result, there now exists a methodology accredited by Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) for use by colleges and universities in establishing the validity and verification of their carbon reductions for transaction in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM). Such transaction enables those colleges and universities to cultivate a line of capital resource for driving further carbon reductions. Now that the piloting work has been completed, a new agreement among a handful of the participating universities has been established with Second Nature (SN) as agent for the future aggregation of carbon reductions by colleges and universities for transaction in the VCM. This new enterprise will permit some 700 signatories to the ACUPCC to embark upon participation in VCM as a way to aggregate funds to drive their carbon reductions more deeply, more quickly.