WATER QUALITY TRADING IN LA

IMPACT SPOTLIGHT: WATER QUALITY TRADING IN LA

Water quality trading is an innovative, market-based, cost-effective mechanism to help achieve local water quality improvements

Companies involved in the US BCSD’s Louisiana Water Synergy Project partnered with environmental, agricultural, and coastal protection agencies to design a framework and develop guidance for a Water Quality Trading Program for Louisiana. Building on a revised statute passed in June 2017, the Water Quality Trading program facilitates trades between industrial and municipal point sources with agricultural and other types of non-point sources.

This program demonstrates that voluntary, market-based solutions can successfully improve water quality in Louisiana, the Mississippi River, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico at a lower cost and more efficiently than traditional regulatory approaches.

Companies in the region, including those that are also participating in the Gulf Coast Carbon Collaborative, have emphasized that stacking credits can make ecosystem service projects much more attractive. Water Quality credits used in conjunction with carbon credits and other social impact metrics can make the business case for adding these types of projects to the sustainability portfolio much more attractive.

The US BCSD team has worked with a number of companies in the region to help them better understand this complex landscape, and make actionable connections to the right state government program leaders and NGOs operating in the space.

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US BCSD Project: Louisiana Water Synergy Project

Impact Areas: Water, Carbon