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The first step was to identify, within their different production chains, that the swine dejections had the highest potential to generate carbon credits. Sadia had originally intended to use the forest wood employed to heat the boilers to obtain the CERs (better known as carbon credits).
According to Meire Ferreira, executive director of the Sadia Sustainability Institute, the objective is to involve all the 3,2 thousand swine breeders integrated to the company. She points out that the adherence to the program is voluntary and that up to now approximately 2,9 thousand breeders expressed their interest in the project. Sadia will be responsible for negotiating the price with the companies interested in buying the credits, and for intermediating the contact between the buyers and the swine breeders who would not likely be able to negotiate individually.
In order to build a biodigestor in all properties, Sadia obtained from the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) a financing of over R$60 million. This investment will be paid with the revenues resulting from the sales of the credits obtained by the breeders, explains the executive. ”This is not a program that will make the breeder rich; the main beneficiary will be the environment, since the production will be carried out under sustainable development conditions”, she stated.
At a first stage the methane gas produced by the swine dejections will be burnt, generating carbon gas which is 21 times less pollutant, and reducing therefore the impact on the environment. On a second phase the breeders will be able to connect equipments that will produce electric power out of the methane gas, for their properties.
Agility in the approvals
The project took 6 months to be approved: 4 at the Interministerial Commission for Climate Changes, the Brazilian organ responsible for anlysing methodologies in the National territory, and 2 months at the ONU Executive Committee. The longest phase of the project was spent in structuring the methodology and the economic feasibility since 80% of the breeders are small producers, with an average of 300 swine by fattening cycle, and would not be able to build the biodigestor.
Meire Ferreira stresses that the approved method was inspired on one used in Chile to treat the swine dejections. The difference lays on the complexity of implementation, due to the large quantity of properties involved (in the Andean country the project was for one plant only).
http://www.conpet.gov.br/eng/story.php?id_story=9
