Farm Ecology

AgRefresh hopes to engage the industry in a serious discussion about alternative business models. We feel that a buyer of carbon offsets needs protection in the form of better transparency and explanation about that which they are purchasing. The PDF document attached here confronts the problems inherent in one model, the sale of expected future carbon reductions today, even though they have NOT occurred and contrasts that model to the more conventional sale of carbon reductions which have already occurred and go by various names, including VERs (Verified Emissions Reductions).

The differences to buyers of products created under these two models is substantial and important, though challenging to grasp for persons not deeply immersed in the technical details of environmental accounting and carbon offset standards.

Download and read this document at your leisure and then join us in conversation about what you read. We welcome brokers who employ the model selling expected future results today to engage with us in an open and transparent exchange as well.

Jeffrey Frost

Perspective on Verified Emissions Reductions (VERs) versus
Expected Future-Offsets

From: Jeffrey C Frost [mailto:jfrost@agrefresh.org]
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 8:56 AM
To: vcarbonnews@ecosystemmarketplace.com
Subject: Value Is Rational Given Information

Dear Editors:

While reading your latest V-Carbon News, part of my regular diet, I found myself wishing that you would had been more comprehensive in your comments about the root causes of differences in market value found in voluntary markets for carbon credits. Your lead section “from the editors” focused on the “where” aspect of project credits, noting that buyers in Colorado and Baltimore will presumably value locally sourced credits over those from elsewhere. AgRefresh, where I work, focuses similarly on agricultural credits which appeal to buyers seeking support of family farms. But I think it is important to always remind all of us that differences in valuations are rational and if credits are being sold in the voluntary markets priced at multiples of the low cost options, there are good reasons. Those reasons are based upon aspects beyond the “where” issue. Specifically, as you know, offsets which are real, permanent, additional, transparent, certified, verified, serial numbered, registered, and of current vintages instead of future promises, have value well above alternatives which lack one or more of these characteristics. We know that you know these things; but we feel it is important to always remind all of us of the full range of issues. We see lots of junk credits being sold, including unconscionably labeled junk, and only information and understanding created by folks like you can help to direct the income streams from the sale of credits to the right places in the right amounts. Thanks for helping all of us to remember to differentiate, separate, isolate, and enunciate the issues!

Jeffrey Frost

Farm Ecology Broker

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AgRefresh . . . providers of Pure Farm Energy™

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Jeffrey C. Frost

Farm Ecology Broker

802.859.0099

jfrost@agrefresh.org

www.agrefresh.org

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“We are disrupters of a status quo based on agribusiness and fossil fuels.” “When the entrenched, who value owning, say that sustainability costs too much, we say that owning and consuming costs too much and delivers too little.”

The words ring with all the fiery defiance of those declarations by Ethan Allen, enshrined on our Statehouse walls.

They’re proposed values statements, now being drafted by the company’s members, of a new Burlington-based business, AgRefresh. Surprisingly, perhaps, they’re authored not by a wild-eyed revolutionary but by a lifelong capitalist entrepreneur.

Jeff Frost, AgRefresh’s founding partner, has spent three decades starting companies and conducting high tech and market analysis for major banks and utilities. He’s one of a new breed of entrepreneurs operating with a fresh vision of money – both its capabilities and its limits.

The above paragraphs are the start of an article by Daniel Hecht from The Green Grapevine from April 10, 2007