The year has kicked-off on an encouraging note with the exciting news that our Brickstar stove project is now registered as a Gold Standard for the Global Goals (GS4GG) micro-scale project. The project was conceived in 2012 and has progressed successfully through all its development phases to the point where it is ready for implementation at scale.
This is not the first time that Nova has succeeded in registering a project with Gold Standard and to date we have traded more than 200 000 Voluntary Emission Reductions (VER’s) generated from our flagship programme Basa Magogo. Having achieved this measure of success in our flagship project, the question always remained whether it could be done again. Now, finally the Brickstar project is showing potential for the same measure of success.
Once you have developed something that works in one village, the big question is how to take it to hundreds of villages, and where to get funds to do so. Running parallel to our own development of the project we also initiated the Gold Standard’s process of project validation, certification and registration to explore carbon credits as a possible avenue towards a feasible business case for large-scale role out. The process also assists project developers to work rigorously and keep account of each grievance or suggestion raised by stakeholders in the community. Having the project registered as a GS4GG project allows it to generate VER’s which Nova can then trade on the carbon credit market in order to sustain the project over an extended period of time (5-10 years).
It took dedication and commitment from all role players to see this project through from where it started until today. We are truly inspired by this development and it offers us encouragement to continue pioneering in this form of sustainable development for many years to come.
