An Airdrie-based company is gaining international recognition for its work to help slow global warming by removing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and sequestering carbon in farmland where they use no-till farming.
“We simply can’t afford to continue business as usual in the world because climate change and global warming is a real thing”
Carbon Credit Solutions says it has eight million acres of land for this purpose and the result is equal to removing emissions from 702,000 cars in Alberta.
“This company is doing an immense amount of good,” says Ed Alfke, the company’s CEO and chairman of the board. “I’m committed to making the world better for my children and grandchildren and to create a company that’s both profitable and sustainable in order to achieve that.
“We’re working hard. We’re doing really well. We’re going global so that’s pretty cool…. We’re the largest in the globe at what we do. We sink and hold carbon in the ground.”
Carbon Credit Solutions measures the success of green projects, develops carbon credit projects, and consults on carbon credit projects.
The company uses its proprietary software and processes to develop carbon credits and measure performance against environmental standards. It implements key performance indicators to monitor, measure, report and verify the outcome of sustainable projects. It identifies risks and implements preventative, detective and corrective controls to mitigate the risk of project failure. And it uses a data-centric, transparent, disciplined and controlled development process, leveraging experts in its global network.
Alfke says climate change is one of the single biggest challenges facing global development today and the company is committed to making a difference. Carbon credits are part of the solution and are financially and environmentally rewarding.
Last fall, Alfke captured the 2017 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Prairies in the Cleantech and Environmental category.
Carbon Credit Solutions is Alfke’s 23rd company and he has more than 30 years of business growth experience in industries as diverse as auto, finance and tech.
He has been pivotal in helping the company become the largest aggregator of carbon credits in North America.
The company, which currently has 42 employees, began in 2008 and Alfke joined in 2013. Since its inception, it has expanded its operations to the United States and South America. China is next on the list for expansion as the company has grown by 400 per cent in 40 months.
“It is exciting to know that the important work that we are doing is being recognized by the business community,” says Alastair Handley, the company’s president and founder.
Alfke says Alberta was the first carbon market in the Americas that started the whole idea of reducing emissions. The company has helped the Ontario government set up its carbon markets and it advised the government of Alberta as well.
“Our Climate Smart Group is the global brand that we’re expanding under outside of the country,” he says. “We’re starting to take the carbon knowledge and our major software and processes into different global markets based on what we’ve learned here.
“We simply can’t afford to continue business as usual in the world because climate change and global warming is a real thing,” says Alfke. “It’s disastrous in Africa, the Middle East. Lots of places in the world are being impacted by this whole change in temperature and weather patterns.
“Things are changing. It’s happening and it’s real. We’re part of slowing that down.”t
