It's not easy to save the planet, but the Canadian Standards Association has a plan.

Having recently adopted the international ISO 14064 standard, the CSA is opening the door for Canadian greenhouse gas emitters to start cleaning up their acts and potentially prosper in an international carbon trading market.

To help Canadians meet the ISO 14064 standard and, ultimately, achieve carbon-neutral status, CSA is providing companies and jurisdictions the tools to measure their carbon footprints and use carbon offsets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Completed in March 2006, the ISO 14064 standards adopted by the CSA are the result of more than three years of work that involved experts from the world's major emitting countries, including the U.S., Australia, Russia, India and China, who negotiated and approved the standards.

Once considered a costly procedure to be avoided or delayed, emissions control measures are increasingly being welcomed by emitters, says the CSA.

"Over the last year, we have seen significant uptake of the standards across Canada," says CSA climate change director Michel Girard. "The government of Alberta has included the standard in its new regulatory framework. And Manitoba is looking at launching a Climate Action web portal based on the standard."

Mr. Girard says the voluntary market has also generated significant activity and interest in CSA's GHG CleanProjects registry in Canada, the U.S. and abroad. The result is a currently registered emissions reduction potential of 20 million tonnes, he says. "This is very encouraging for the voluntary carbon markets."

NGO-led voluntary emissions reduction programs are also growing in popularity. The World Wildlife Fund's Climate Savers, for example, has attracted Nike, Sony, IBM, Polaroid, Tetra Pak and other companies.

The benefits of going green - in terms of image and marketing - are becoming ever clear in a marketplace that is increasingly placing a value on companies with demonstrated environmental priorities.

Adopting the international standard, however, offers companies perhaps the greatest incentive yet - the opportunity to participate in the international carbon markets. "The World Bank has estimated that these markets were worth $30 billion US in 2006, so there is quite a financial incentive to participate if you can reduce your emissions," says Mr. Girard.

That's where the CSA come in. "If companies use their own in-house methods for calculating their carbon footprint they might have to do far more justification of their calculations than if they use an internationally recognized standard." said Mr. Girard. "The international standards create a consistent and comparable set of rules for calculating a GHG footprint, creating more credibility for the company."

Despite the success of its voluntary program, the WWF Canada would like to see regulations compel Canadian companies to achieve international standards.

"In Canada, the rules haven't been defined, and international regulations as set out in the Kyoto accord have not been converted to domestic law," says Julia Langer, director of the Global Threats program for WWF in Canada.

This inhibits the ability, or incentive, for Canadian emitters to participate in carbon-trading markets, says Ms. Langer. "They can do it voluntarily, but a regulatory system needs to be in place to create a restricted commodity. It's the constraint that gives value to the commodity - in this case, greenhouse gases. We are behind the 8-ball in Canada, which leads to missed opportunities."