Sustainability Dividend (more bang for your carbon dollar)

This concept ties into the approach that projects and actions such as offsetting emissions are most effective in dealing with the twin imperatives if they provide multiple benefits.

From a greenhouse perspective, a project (or the offset associated with it) must mitigate emissions to be effective in addressing the need to avoid dangerous climate change. If the same project is able to provide other secondary benefits which help improve aspects of sustainability, then it can be considered to have created a sustainability dividend.

The sustainability dividend is vital if the money spent on addressing greenhouse emissions is to have the maximum effect possible.

Given the intertwined nature of the twin imperatives, to compartmentalise each problem and try to address it separately means ignoring the interconnected nature of these issues, increasing the effort and expenditure needed and missing exciting opportunities to rapidly improve our handling of both.

Gold Standard accreditation of greenhouse projects essentially recognises that a project has not only addressed greenhouse emissions but that it has also had a positive impact on sustainability overall.