Carbon Offset New Year's Postcard on Sale in Japan

The Japan Post Group released new Carbon Offset New Year's postcards for sale on November 1, 2007. The sending of New Year's greeting cards is a national tradition in Japan. A total of over 3.9 billion postcards stamped with lottery numbers are on sale this year, including 100 million with carbon-offsets as a special feature .

While the price of a regular New Year's postcard is 50 yen (about 43 US cents), one with a carbon offset costs 55 yen (about 47 US cents), of which five yen (about five US cents) will be donated specifically to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The donation will be used to support CO2 reduction projects of environmental organizations operating in connection with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The Group will use the carbon credits acquired by the projects to help Japan reduce national emissions by six percent compared to 1990 levels--the national commitment under the Kyoto Protocol.

The Japan Post Group sees Carbon Offset New Year's postcards as being appropriate greeting cards to arrive at the beginning of 2008, the inaugural year of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. As Group will match the donations received through these cards, carbon credits worth 312,000 tons of CO2 can be acquired (based on prices as of August 2007). It estimates that the reduction effect will be about 0.4 percent of Japan's six percent reduction target.

http://www.japanpost.jp/en/

Posted: 2007/12/12 11:27:17 AM
Japanese version