Reducing emissions within the municipality's operations is a priority, but it will be years before municipal governments achieve zero emissions. In the meantime, municipalities can mitigate the impact of their operations and become ‘carbon neutral' through the purchase of carbon offsets.
However, carbon offsetting is a relatively new phenomenon, and there are a range of competing quality assurance standards, such as the ‘Voluntary Gold Standard', and ISO 14064. The BC government is currently developing its own offset strategy. Meanwhile, we can help point you in the direction of some guides about current offsetting best practice.
http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/ConsumersGuidetoCarbonOffsets.pdf
