Electronics reconditioning and refurbishing
Eligible reconditioning projects avoid incineration of waste or complex recovery processes by renewing products, allowing them a second life while skipping the waste treatment process.
Specific criteria have to be validated in order for carbon credits to be issued for reconditioning processes.
Carbon credits eligibility criteria
1. Measurability
Definition: The avoided/reduced emissions are quantitively and rigorously measured.
Information needed:
- Inputs
- Types of products that are reconditioned
- Weight of each type of product
- Project location
- Element proportion/ material composition of each product
- Input source of the project,
- proportion of each type of product in the total input
- Transportation
- Input percentage (%) per country/ location,
- Mode of transport used for each input
- Distance between the suppliers and the project site
3. Process
- Different stages of the process
- Energy, water, chemical consumption data for each stage
- Actual functioning rate (%) from the entire inputs of the project
- How does the project treat the scrap? enter the collection and waste treatment as usual?
- What is the process line of the project?
- Does the project differentiate between reconditioning and refurbishing?
- For the inputs that enter the reconditioning phase, how much is the internal repair rate?
- Energy consumption for its different processes
4. Waste
- Management practices
5. Distribution
- how and to where are the products distributed
2. Real
Definition: The emission removal/avoidance has actually occurred, according to the monitoring plan.
Information needed:
General KIIs used in LCAs to show real removal and avoidance occurred are:
- Number of items sold by category
- Rate of input/output repackaging by category
- Average transport per item
These will be used for year-on-year verification.
3. Additionality
Definition: The project activity would not have occurred without the sale of carbon credits.
Information needed:
Financial additionality:
- Proof that the money for the carbon credit sale will be used to extend an existing factory, buy a new product necessary for the company to scale, open a new factory branch…
- Are there any material improvements (in machinery, infrastructure…) you want to make on the site that could be funded from carbon credit sales?
- Are there any improvements in efficiency or environmental performance that you could implement with this funding?
- Carbon credits can help structure stay afloat
- How have changes in the cost of your inputs (electricity..ect…) increased over time?
- Compared to the expected costs, defined in the budget and planning for the project?
- How has the price that you sell your products for changed?
- Has it kept up with the increased cost of operation?
Prevalence additionality:
- Prove that the solution is currently far from being market practice.
- Show how additional fundings could help the product be more competitive - inputs are too expensive, prices too high…- in order to scale and be adopted more widely.
Technological additionality:
- Carbon credit money can be invested in new previously - unreachable technology for the project to scale
4. Permanence
Definition: Carbon will be removed/avoided for at least 50 years, and the project outcomes will not be reversed.
Information needed: Not applicable as not removal project
5. Unicity
Definition: Carbon credits are only counted once and are not double-issued or sold.
Information needed:
- Signed contract committing not to use another certification body or label to issue carbon credits for the given project.
- The project developer signed the Riverse Project Developer Contract for exclusivity on carbon credit issuance for the project.
6. Co-benefits
Definition: Projects must provide additional positive impact towards environmental and social sustainability
Information needed: At least 2 UN Sustainable Development Goals have to be justified with LCA results or KIIs.
- Goal 8: “Decent work and economic growth”
- 8.4 resource efficiency in consumption and production
- KII: material footprint
- Goal 9: “Industry, innovation and infrastructure”
- 9.1: Develop sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructures
- 9.3 integrate small-scale industrial enterprises into value chains and markets
- KII: CO2 emitted in the combustion of fuels per m2 of biobased material produced
- Goal 11: “Sustainable cities and communities”
- 11.1 support economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas
- 11.3 Inclusive and sustainable urbanisation
- 11.6 Reduce the environmental impact of cities
- KII: tons of waste avoided per year
- Goal 12: “Responsable consumption and production”
- 12.2 Sustainable management and use of natural resources
- 12.5 reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
- KII: tons of raw material resources saved per year
7. Substitution
Definition: The products/services generated as project outputs must appropriately, realistically, and efficiently be substituted to those of the baseline scenario, rather than create new demand.
Information needed:
The project has:
- Quality control to ensure that the reconditioned products function properly
- A warranty for refurbished devices
8. Environmental and social do not harm
Definition: Projects must not contribute to environmental or social damage.
Information needed:
- Is the reconditioning process done manually or automatically?
- Is there a presence of chemical products in the process?
- If yes, how are they treated?
- Does the reconditioning process use less energy or water compared to the new product process?
9. Leakage
Definition: The project’s avoided GHG emissions must not be indirectly transferred elsewhere.
Information needed: Information about the origin of the products and where they are distributed
10. Rebound effect
Definition: Efficiency-improvement projects must not lead to increases in overall consumption.
Information needed:
- Is there any project strategy or commitment to supply local markets rather than long distance distribution?
- Does the project inform customers on how to prolong the use of products?
11. Technology readiness level
Definition: Technology Readiness Level must be 6 or higher.
Information needed:
Provide proof of technological progress and/or production capacities either in an operational environment or lab.
