|
 It was just three years ago that Brazilian businessman Juarez Cotrim, from Brazil's southeastern state of São Paulo, who owns brick factory Cerâmica Luara, discovered an opportunity to run an environmentally sustainable business: the carbon credits market.
The first step was to adapt the factory so it would comply with CO2 emission standards. Manufacturing over 400,000 bricks a month, the factory replaced the previously burnt native firewood with biomass, a type of sawdust made solely from reforested wood, which is less pollutant.
In 2007, these changes earned the company the approval of a project for selling carbon credits. Established by the Kyoto Protocol, this market mechanism allows companies that have reduced their emissions of greenhouse effect gases to sell their credits to companies in developed countries.
So far, Cerâmica Luara has sold over 30,000 tons of CO2 in the carbon credit market. The first sale, of 23,700 tons, was closed with the United States in February. The second one took place last week, to France, and was equivalent to 6,370 tons of CO2.
Each ton sells for six euros. "I have invested the money in the company itself. I have replaced the manufacturing machinery and changed the electric wiring, so as to reduce power consumption even further," says Cotrim.
According to him, this new stance is part of an awareness-raising process with regard to the future of the planet. "We were concerned that our children might not have the same natural resources, or that they might not get to know some of the species that we do," says the businessman.
"We are contributing to preserve the environment in two ways. First off, by not burning native wood, we are contributing to stop deforestation. Secondly, by burning the biomass, we are helping reduce pollution," he claims.
The achievement of company Cerâmica Luara sets an example for businessmen who wish to seize profitable, ecologically correct business opportunities. "I am doing my share and expect other businessmen to do the same. Right now, we are getting paid to protect the environment. In the future, if we do not stop polluting, we might be forbid from working altogether," he believes.
Cerâmica Luara has been in the market for 20 years and produces bricks and cinderblocks. "Presently, our infrastructure allows us to supply the municipality of Panorama and surroundings. We also supply other states and make home deliveries of both off-the-shelf and made-to-order products in large amounts," explains Cotrim.
The sustainable production process used at Cerâmica Luara started with the implementation of a LPA (Local Production Arrangement), developed by the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae). The LPA counts on 72 red ceramic companies in the cities of Ouro Verde, Panorama, Paulicéia, Presidente Epitácio, and Teodoro Sampaio. The aim is for the factories to work together, and thus increase profitability and sustainable production.
Besides Luara, nine other red ceramic sector companies in the LPA have also adapted their production processes and are already undergoing certification processes in order to be able to sell carbon credits. They are expected to bring more credits market investors into the region.
Service
Telephone: (+55 18) 3871.3177
Website: www.ceramicaluara.com.br
E-mail: ceramicaluara@hotmail.com
Anba
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.