September 29th, 2008 
Tushar Mathur [Although it is recognized by economists that carbon taxes are probably the best approach in terms of providing the right incentives to get consumers to reduce their carbon footprint, they are almost an impossible political sell in North America.
However, some experts have argued that instead of carbon taxes we need carbon rewards or credits. Carbon rewards or credits work the same way as taxes in that you pay a surcharge on carbon emitting products such as gasoline, etc. But rather than having the money fall into the hands of government the money flows back directly into the hands of consumers in terms of credits. Consumers can use these credits to purchase “virtualized” zero carbon products and services. This is where broadband networks can play a critical role, as virtualized products can only be delivered over true broadband networks. In fact I argue the networks themselves should be paid for through carbon credits as in our proposed free fiber to the home business model (http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/)
Ron Dembo of ZeroFootPrint has written a great paper on the concept of carbon credits which was recently covered in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080908.RREGULY08/TPStory/Business/
To read the entire paper please see http://www.zerofootprint.net/pdf/zerofootprint-green-credits.pdf
The ZeroFootPrint web site also has excellent articles explaining the intricacies of carbon offsets and developing a detailed carbon accounting plan in line with ISO 14064 and related standards – BSA]
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