Toronto, ON — The Canadian government announces offset credits to businesses that upgrade their refrigeration and air conditioning systems to ones that use refrigerants with lower global warming potentials (GWPs).
The federal offset protocol, which is titled Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Refrigeration Systems, will offer offset credits through Canada’s greenhouse gas offset credit system.
Projects carried out under the credit system must meet the regulations and the application protocol requirements, which set out conditions for project implementation and methods for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions reductions and removals.
Only eligible project activities included in a published federal offset protocol can generate federal offset credits.
The protocol encourages suitable businesses like ice rinks, office buildings, retail grocery stores, shopping centres, food processing plants, industrial parks and cold storage warehouses to upgrade their systems to receive credits. Eligible refrigeration systems include centralized refrigeration, commercial air conditioning, chillers, condensing units, and heat pumps.
Each credit will represent one tonne of emissions and is tradeable to facilities regulated under the federal pollution pricing system for industrial emitters to help these facilities with compliance costs and maintain business competitiveness.
Credits can also be sold to others who will use them to meet voluntary emission reduction targets or net-zero commitments.