Helping to Preserve the Amazon Rainforest
At SGS, we are constantly looking for new ways to reduce our impact on climate change. These include implementing energy efficiency measures in our offices and laboratories, choosing lower emission vehicles for our company fleet and using renewable energy. We also balance those carbon emissions we have not yet been able to eliminate with carefully chosen offsetting projects.
This enables us to ensure that we remain a carbon neutral company. All the projects we sponsor must support local communities and the carbon savings created by the projects must be independently verified.
In Brazil’s Para State, more than 63% of the rainforest has been lost. This has brought about not only the destruction of habitats in one of the most biodiverse regions of the world, but also the loss of a major carbon sink, as trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The Floresta de Portel Project aims to protect and preserve this fragile environment and prevent illegal deforestation. It combines economic development and nature protection with improved forest management and the implementation of fair trade activities, including agroforestry and better territory management in the form of a “Private conservation reserve”.
It is estimated that the project will prevent 22 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere over a 40 year period. Additionally, people from the local community have found employment in preserving, managing and monitoring the forest and supporting its biodiversity, which includes, for example, the rare Ka’apor Capuchin monkey. The project’s benefits also include developing knowledge about agroforestry’s techniques and land law.
