Please find below, the link to Mont-Blanc Ecotourism’s March newsletter.

In 2007, the Chamonix Tourist Office offset the equivalent of 26 tons of CO2 for the sum of 634 Euros. This money was invested in the CO2 solidarity programme of the NGO Groupement des Energies Renouvelables, Environnement et Solidarité - GERES, (Group for renewable energy, environment and solidarity).
We wanted to be able to finance a project in a mountainous region. GERES has an interesting project in Ladahk and this caught our attention. Compensating the South is not necessarily the right solution, but it does have the advantage of helping developing countries and thus, with a view to solidarity (the term employed by GERES), to contribute to a world-wide sustainable development.

During a trip to India, we visited GERES.

Zoom in on the Ladakh project...

Ladakh is a region in the state of Jammu in Kashmir, in the north of India. It is an extremely dry area, particularly in Winter. Temperatures sometimes fall as low as -30° and heating systems are rare.
There are about 10 people working in Leh, the capital of Ladahk, in the GERES office. The team, coordinated by Vincent Stauffer, the manager and GERES representative here, are mainly Ladahki. Other French people work here more or less long-term on quite specific tasks. David Boyard, for example is working on a solar buildings project. He assists the locals in the construction and management of buildings. The two principle tasks of GERES here are to work on solar buildings (for habitation and agriculture) and with the local craftsmen (working with wool).
GERES offers assistance in building or renovating buildings using solar energy. It is the inhabitants who make the request.

The NGO is uses three types of relatively simple methods:

- Direct gain: the optimisation of south-facing parts of the house and installing or enlarging windows there, double-glazing and insulating, if necessary, the rest of the house.

- Attached Green House: A greenhouse built with local material ( plastic sheeting) heats the main room, thanks to the greenhouse effect.

- Trombe wall: a south-facing wall, painted black and covered with double-glazing, helps to retain the heat in an isolated house.
GERES also helps local NGOs to support women's self-help groups (SHGs) working with wool. The NGOs with GERES, offer them solar-powered premises, materials and training. Each SHG is followed up for 3 years. The results are positive, since the women, thanks to their better working conditions, produce more clothes and other woollen accessories .

In short, the projects are very interesting and generally work well. Nevertheless, the large number of people working on these projects makes them complicated and sometimes less efficient than they could be. Communication is also a weak point in this case. No surprise there then....

For more info: www.co2solidaire.org
What is carbon off-setting?

Please find below, the link to Mont-Blanc Ecotourism’s January-February newsletter.