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A forestry scientist and bush pilot are partnering to form a Sault Ste. Marie company focused on developing and selling carbon credits to overseas clients.
Bio-Carbon Systems International Inc. is the creation of Luc Duchesne and Rob Cormier who have global plans to do aerial surveys of tropical forests and create biological carbon pools for commodity trading.
"This is a natural progression of what I've been doing for years," said Duchesne, the company president and CEO.
Incorporated in early June, the company is filing their plans with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and expects to head to market within the next few months to raise money for their international projects.
Heading up a cutting-edge company with "global reach" has been years in the making for Duchesne, a former government forest scientist who started a forest consulting business and a bio-diesel development company in the Sault.
In the last few years, he's also been running GSN Dreamworks, a R & D firm, exploring opportunities around carbon stocks and forest resources.
"I'm excited. I think this is perfectly well-suited to what I've learned over the years. I'm ready for this," said Duchesne.
Carbon credits, also known as offsets, are emissions reduction projects – such as planting trees – that companies invest in to counteract the greenhouse gases they emit elsewhere.
The company is built around Cormier's trademarked R-MAP (Remote Mapping and Photogrammetry) technology and Duchesne's expertise at assessing forest carbon pools.
Developed in 2001, R-MAP is a sophisticated data capture software that allows photographic interpreters to analyze tree heights, species and diametre.
The technology attracted little interest from government foresters but "has gone viral" with industry, said Cormier, who has 21 years of aerial photography experience with his company, R & B Cormier.
It was cheaper, more efficient and safer for forestry companies like AbitibiBowater, Domtar and Tembec to contract him to accurately interpret their tree inventory from the air with a high-resolution photograph than to put field crews on the ground.
He's also performed work for Trans Canada Energy, Brookfield Power and has established contacts in Chile.
Duchesne has developed algorithms and other skills to assess the amount of carbon stock found in forest ecosystems. His protocol is trademarked as Tree-to-Trade.
"Imagine Rob's ability to measure and monitor, and (my ability) to turn those results into carbon pools," said Duchesne.
That kind of scientific verification of carbon pools is huge.
Carbon credits are a fast growing global commodity market, but it has been plagued by scams which cast doubt on the validity of the whole system.
Cormier and Duchesne said the scams have underscored the need for high- quality, verifiable and compliance-grade credits.
Duchesne said being able to scientifically monitor and assess large tracts of land provides buyers and commodity exchanges with some assurance that "what we call a carbon pool is really a carbon pool."
"What better way than send a GPS, time-stamped picture with the entire story on your computer screen, and provide the technology to map and verify it," adds Cormier.
Their main geographical area of focus is the tropical rainforests of South America and Africa where constant cloud cover prohibits aerial photography and means these areas have be mapped by satellite.
Flying low-level flights is second nature to Cormier, dating back to his Northern Ontario bush pilot days of ferrying supplies and people into remote areas.
"I just did a project in the Congo, flying all day at 700 metres under solid cloud deck. That is higher than I used to fly for White River (Air Service) all year long," said Cormier.
"It was nothing for us to make the leap and say we've got the skills, the technology and the ability to map stuff in the tropics where everyone else needs radar and LiDAR (for forestry applications)."
As chief pilot and operations boss, Cormier will oversee international sales and will handle the aviation technology. He became interested in the carbon trading market when a Chilean partner told him about the new Santiago Climate Exchange.
They'll make money on training Chileans and Africans on how to use the technology by selling them cameras, the R-MAP software and from the residual sale of carbon credits.
"Ultimately, we'll do any carbon projects we think we can generate revenue," said Duchesne, "from forest inventory, to creating and managing pools."
Duchesne said they can develop carbon projects in the Congo and sell them to clients on the European Union Economic Trading Scheme, the largest and most highly regulated greenhouse gas emissions trading exchange.
"The best way to make money is making use of this technology and my knowledge to create blue chip carbon credits. There are many countries looking to monetize their carbon pools and many are signatories to the Kyoto protocol."
Due to confidentiality agreements, Duchesne would not disclose the identity of future business or scientific partners, nor how much money they intend to raise to develop their carbon projects.
"We're dealing with a number of international firms with significant knowledge in all aspects of the value chain," said Duchesne, who expects the company to be publicly listed within three to four months.
With 11 "associates" on board, they expect to grow by establishing a Toronto sales office to deal with large clients as well as setting up international field offices.
The company expects to add a forest management partner that's skilled in the carbon credit market and is also working with an aircraft manufacturer to design a small turbine aircraft built specially for their needs.
"We've got a market that's growing," said Cormier. "We're no longer mapping forests for pulp and paper companies, but for engineering firms, governments and polluters."
Duchesne downplays the pitfalls of entering the carbon trading market.
"Every emerging sector of the economy there are risks. However, we do know that there is an appetite for carbon credits from large corporate emitters and we do know there is legislation in place in different parts of the world where people have to report their carbon offsets and they have to buy carbon offsets if they can't meet their obligations."
If anything, Duchesne said, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster lends credence to carbon credits.
"Our society has to internalize the cost of pollution and carbon credits is the currency. It may take different shape or form over the years but carbon credits is certainly in line with the need to be environmentally more accountable."
