With a mission to bring about a significant reduction in the UK’s carbon footprint, PURE the Clean Planet Trust – the UK’s leading offset charity – has established an exciting new partnership with BRE. The partnership will focus on encouraging the adoption of better carbon management practices for the business community and individuals and aims to establish UK based offset projects that will help the UK reach its 2050 80% carbon reduction target.

PURE was established in 2006 by Climate Exchange plc which has also provided administration for the charity –  BRE will now take on that role.

To date the PURE Trust has focussed on offsetting through Kyoto projects in the developing world. The quality of its work has been recognised by the ENDS Report and independent offset rating web-site Carbon Catalog. “Now we will be able to offer a more holistic approach to carbon management” explains Jed Jones, PURE Trustee “BRE has a wealth of experience in advising clients on how best to reduce their carbon footprint. It also has an insight into where offset funds could best be channelled for the greatest return for UK plc. The fit between the two organisations could not be better as BRE is owned by a charity, the BRE Trust.”

Peter Bonfield , CEO of BRE says ‘We applaud PURE for adopting this more holistic approach to carbon management which will be of great benefit to their client base. The take up of more effective carbon reduction strategies coupled with ‘residual needs’ based offsetting (where a client has exhausted all possible cost effective reduction activities) will play an important role in our delivery of a low carbon society. We also wish to thank Climate Exchange plc for its vision in creating PURE.”

Given the extent of the challenge the UK faces in reducing its carbon footprint over the next 40 years, both organisations are keen to establish UK based projects that can contribute to the national CO2 reduction programme.  Jones explains: “The move to establish projects in the UK is part of PURE’s long term strategy. To date, there has been very little activity on project-based emission reductions in the UK but we believe that this will change in the future and PURE wish to be a pioneer in promoting this concept. I’m delighted to announce that the BRE Trust has agreed to fund research into the feasibility of developing UK projects to be published later this year.”