GCX partners in World Cup Offset Project

Global Carbon Exchange is the official local partner to Do-inc and Lemnis Lighting for the LED retrofit programme that will be used as one of the carbon offset projects for the FIFA World Cup 2010.

“This is a watershed project for GCX and we are proud to be associated with the World Cup 2010 in South Africa while being amongst the first South African carbon project initiators to undertake a programmatic CDM project”, said GCX Director Kevin James.

Greening the World Cup and leaving a green legacy after all the visitors have gone home is vital to the hosting of the FIFA World Cup. This project is an initiative between the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in liaison with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Department of Energy, Department of Tourism, Central Energy Fund, Eskom and the Local Organizing Committee.

The LED (light emitting diode) retrofit programme, appropriately named The LED's ‘Kick Off’ project, involves a large-scale introduction of LED technology in South Africa, starting with the World Cup project. LED’s use only one tenth of the energy used by regular incandescent bulbs, and half the electricity used by CFL’s. These LED’s will replace the inefficient lighting in hotels, office buildings, households, on the streets and in rural areas.

Due to the emissions reductions as a result of the LED’s, the project will be registered with the UNFCCC to generate Certified Emissions Reductions (CER’s) Part of these carbon credits will be used to offset the domestic footprint of the World Cup, estimated at 900 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Some more of the carbon credits will be used to offer an attractive financial discount to the customer buying the LED’s to encourage participation in the programme.

The success of a programmatic CDM programme, this one being the first of its kind in the world, rests on the monitoring procedure that monitors the realized savings of the project. GCX has been commissioned to assist in the design of this monitoring methodology by advising on various monitoring options, assisting in the determination of an appropriate representative sample, as well as supplying implementation specifications for the contractors responsible for installing the LED’s.

In addition, GCX is also performing a comprehensive LED market analysis, developing a reliable baseline lighting product mix as well as designing the various input templates to facilitate data collection that are required for the project.

Due to GCX’s experience with Energy Efficiency Audits and energy efficiency services (link to http://www.globalcarbonexchange.co.za/energy-efficiency-services/)   in conjunction with the experience in carbon projects (link to http://globalcarbonexchange.co.za/project-development/) , GCX are the perfect partner to Do-Inc on the project.  


The LED's ‘Kick-off” project will also include the donation of “Glowball” soccer balls to underprivileged children and an education program for up to 300,000 children in South Africa on “how to become a climate hero!”, teaching them how to live a sustainable life and save energy. The education programme will be implemented by South Africa’s Food & Trees for Africa.