Explainers

Since entering commercial production back in the 1980s, PET bottle-grade resin has rapidly grown to become the dominant packaging for beverages. The move away from traditional glass bottles was driven by a need to reduce both transportation and production costs, whilst improving the durability and safety of packaging. Improvements in production and compounding technologies over this time also enabled for a rapid expansion in PET resin usage across the food and beverage space.

• Offset standards set out procedures for preparing carbon reduction projects.
• They also set down methodologies to measure carbon reduction.
• Standards apply to the entire life cycle of a project.

Carbon offsets are the ‘visible’ outcome of an investment project that replaces existing fossil-fuel or carbon-intensive processes with clean, low- or zero-carbon alternatives, or which absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

Bioenergy is a source of renewable energy that is produced when biomass fuel is burned. Biomass fuels are made from municipal waste, agricultural and forest residues. Forest biomass, which includes all parts of the tree such as the trunk, branches, leaves, and roots, is the most used biomass feedstock.

Biomass is a fuel derived from organic material such as agricultural and plant residues (e.g., wheat straw, rice husk, sugarcane bagasse), wood and forestry residues (e.g., woodchips, sawdust, wood pellets), and municipal waste.

Carbon compliance markets are legally binding systems that seek to drive emissions down by putting a price on emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The most common compliance market is known as “cap-and-trade”, in which the regulator sets a limit on the total amount of CO2 that can be emitted by covered entities – factories, power plants, energy distributors, etc.

Sugar comes from two crops: sugar cane (which accounts for 80% of total sugar production) and sugar beet (which accounts for the remaining 20%). Both crops produce sucrose and there is is no chemical difference between the end product, although beets only make high quality white sugar whereas cane can make a range of sugars from low-grade raws all the way to high quality whites. Cane and beet are grown in different climates across the globe.

Carbon offsets represent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions made through investments in clean technology and practices, ranging from building wind turbines to replace fossil fuel power to protecting and planting forests.

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• Raw sugar is not fit for human consumption.
• It requires further processing at a refinery to become food grade.
• White sugar is a food-grade product which requires more careful handling.

• Re-export refiners are important swing producers in the sugar market. 
• Freight and energy costs are key factors affecting their profitability. 
• · In this explainer we explain how they work.  

• Sugar and other commodity prices are often quoted as physical values. 
• This enables clearer price risk management.  
• In this explainer we demystify differentials.