Zero Impact®

Zero Impact® is the first Italian project to put the goals of the Kyoto Protocol into action: reducing carbon dioxide emissions and offsetting those emissions by contributing to the planting and conservation of growing forests.

The Impatto Zero® Project

▪ calculates carbon dioxide emissions (CO2-equivalent/kg) released into the atmosphere by any activity, product, service, event, or lifestyle, by means of an environmental impact assessment;

▪ proposes projects and actions aimed at reducing CO2 emissions via strategies for optimizing the use of resources and reducing consumptions; and,

▪ offsets remaining CO2 emissions by contributing to the planting and long-term conservation of growing forests in select geographic areas in Italy, Costa Rica, Madagascar, Panama, and New Zealand.

The project avails itself of Italian and foreign universities specialized in LCA, Life Cycle Assessment, to carry out the scientific calculation of environmental impacts, and of the collaboration of Parks and Nature Reserves for land reforestation, conservation, and protection activities. BIOS, a Certification Company accredited by SINCERT and recognized by the European Union, certifies Impatto Zero®’s entire chain, guaranteeing the process’s proper implementation.

MobilityTech has contributed to the Impatto Zero® project by planting and protecting 3561 m² of growing forest in Costa Rica over the past 5 years.

THE COSTA RICA PROJECT

Since 2003, LifeGate has contributed to a project of regeneration and conservation involving 1,127,840 m²of growing forest in the Karen Mogensen Reserve, located on the Nicoya Peninsula, on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. Today, Impatto Zero® participates in conservation efforts in Costa Rica involving an area equal to 16,047,640 m².

Participating partners

The Impatto Zero® project has chosen specialized partners to guarantee the quality of conservation efforts and to attend to coordinating and training local personnel.

The partners selected for Costa Rica are MINAE (Costa Rica’s Ministry of the Environment and Energy) with its Fonafifo (Fondo Nacional De Financiamiento Forestal, or National Forestry Financing Fund) engaged in environmental conservation, GEV (Guardie Ecologiche Volontarie, or Voluntary Ecological Guards), and Asepaleco (Asociacion Ecologica Paquera, Lepanto y Cóbano, or Ecological Association of Paquera, Lepanto, and Cóbano). The quality of the project’s conservation efforts, coordinated and overseen by the Italian GEV and Costa Rica’s Ministry of the Environment, has been recognized on an international level with the conferral of prestigious awards, including the Ford Environmental Conservation Award.

KAREN MOGENSEN RESERVE

The reserve is located within a protected area of Nicoya, surrounded by the Gulf of Nicoya and the Pacific Ocean. To offset the CO2 emissions of participants in the Impatto Zero® project, today over 1,000,000 m² of forest are protected.

Report of an on-site survey in the Karen Mogensen Reserve – 18-21 February 2010

During the GEV’s monitoring mission carried out to assess reforestation projects, the Karen Mogensen Reserve, managed by Asepaleco, the local Association with which LifeGate and the GEV have an agreement regarding International Cooperation, was visited for 4 days, from 12^th to 15^th February 2010. Currently, the protected zone covers an area of over 900 hectares.

Based on comparisons with previous assessments, vegetation mass has further increased, and overall, the Reserve has already acquired the characteristics of a natural forest without manifest signs of the past human activity that was carried out on the land.

The Reserve’s vegetation shows itself to be in an excellent state of conservation in the oldest areas and in rapid growth in the areas more recently acquired. New saplings are being planted to this day, and the forest nursery is still active. Up to this point, roughly twenty thousand new trees of local, indigenous species have been planted in the reserve.

Paths and firebreaks are well maintained, and a new route through the Reserve has been created for easily reaching the most recently acquired lands. The borders of the Reserve are clearly marked and fenced; signs in the new areas indicate LifeGate Impatto Zero®’s participation. The constant presence of a park keeper who ensures periodic surveillance patrol has allowed for effectively monitoring illegal hunting. There haven’t been any fires in the Reserve for almost ten years.

View the Certificate of Reforestation