Jessica |
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iCRAG: minutes of meeting Monday 12 November 2007.
Present (7): Alison, Deborah, Jax, Jessica, John, Lucy, Tom
Guest: Catherine Ilic (Swiss radio journalist)
Apologies: Doug, Guy
Will we permit CRAGgers to roll-over unused credits?
The meeting was called to make a decision on the issue discussed at the 1 October 2007 meeting of whether rolling over credits should be allowed, and if so, how this should work. A proposal as to how rollovers might work, based on discussion on and after 1 October, had been drafted by John and Jessica as part of a draft codification of the ‘iCRAG Rules’, which had been circulated prior to the meeting (see draft iCRAG Rules 12.11.07). We discussed those of the draft rules relating to rollover and settlement, but didn’t have time to consider many of the others.
John and Jessica explained the rollover model proposed in the draft rules and everyone discussed.
It was agreed by a vote of 5 to 2 that we should allow credits to be rolled over.
However, we did not agree the draft rule that CRAGgers could buy and sell credits from other CRAGgers at any time and at any price agreed between buyer and seller. This was unpopular, as it was not felt that we should allow free trade within iCRAG at this time. It would be complicated to arrange, and could cause bad feeling. We agreed to stick with only selling what we are obliged to sell at each 6 monthly settlement meeting: ie, that which carbon creditors are obliged to sell to those members who are in debt and need to top up their account back to a zero balance before they receive the next six month’s credit allocation. We will have a fixed 6 monthly settlement date and a fixed carbon price for that date.
Tom suggested that the analogy of a bank account rather than a rollover was more accurate: just like with a bank account, if we don’t spend our credits we save them; we don’t lose them. Our carbon accounts of credits and debits is a parallel system to money. The only differences to a bank account are that we do not allow people to go into carbon debt for longer than 6 months, and we oblige people to sell credits to others within the group. Everyone agreed that the ‘carbon account’ was a more useful way of looking at it, and would be easy to understand when explaining to others.
Using the carbon account analogy would also take away any issue of whether settlement should be ‘finalised’ on a six-monthly or annual basis. Subject to the rules, we will take forward on a continuous basis credits we haven’t spent.
Inter-CRAG trading?
We discussed briefly whether trading with other CRAGs might be possible. So far only Oxford CRAG has shown an interest. We felt it was not appropriate to try to do this now, but marked it for future consideration.
Should we have a cap on how many credits each CRAGger may rollover from one six month period to another?
The draft rules 12 November proposed a cap: a CRAGger may not allow their account balance to exceed 150% of the present carbon year’s allowance at the point of each six monthly settlement. Some were concerned that we should have a cap in order to stop CRAGgers building up too many credits. Others disagreed: to have a cap would undermine the idea of the carbon account being like a bank account where you can save; also, excessive build up will be prevented by the rules that we have to sell credits at settlement to debtors, and that each year we get less credits, thus meaning we can save less and that much debt will be likely to need to be bought out.
We voted 4 to 3 against having any cap. If in time it appears that excessive build up of credits is happening, we will consider this issue again.
Should we amend our conversion factor for certain ‘green’ tariff electricity suppliers?
For our first six months we had agreed an arbitrary discount of 50% for users of Ecotricity or Good Energy, as these appeared to be the only genuine suppliers of and investors in renewable – the 50% was in recognition of this, but we agreed that we would try to calculate a more precise discount for future settlements. However, this remains a very difficult issue, which hard data difficult to find and compare. John referred the group to the detailed discussion thread on the website.
According to the website thread, Ecotricity invest solely in renewables, but at present the electricity their customers get from them is not actually from renewables, so will not decrease your personal carbon emissions.
We will obviously need to keep this issue under review, but John presented his latest information and suggested that we change the rules to allow discounts for users of Good Energy and RSPB Energy (from Scottish and Southern) only (ie, not Ecotricity), and only at a 10% discount, as this more accurately reflected the carbon difference between a green and a standard supplier. The group agreed with John’s proposal for the moment, but some wanted to do more research.
ACTION:
1. We agreed to have a Christmas party (and celebration of the end of our first carbon year!) as our 1 December meeting, with everyone bringing food and drink. We would think about the carbon footprint of the feast…
2. The end of our first carbon year is 30 November. Everyone to update their carbon account in advance of the settlement meeting on Monday 7 January, and to notify John in good time so that he can calculate the settlement figures.
3. Jessica will make amendments to draft rules as discussed and circulate revised draft for further comment. Everyone should also consider those parts of the draft rules we didn’t have time to discuss at this meeting. This can be done by email and at a future meeting.
4. We will have a slot at meetings to talk about practical ways of cutting our emissions (following concerns expressed that we have lost sight of this aspect of the CRAG.
5. Consider inter-CRAG trading for some future time.
Next meeting: Monday 7 January 2008. Six monthly settlement meeting! Everyone to attend and to update carbon accounts to 30 November 2007.