BOI ponders new privileges for firms that buy carbon credits from farmers

Narit Therdsteerasukdi, secretary-general of the BOI Office, said his office was in the process of preparing measures to support the purchase of carbon credit.

The BOI would come up with incentives so that industries will invest in buying carbon credits from farmers and plant growers to balance the carbon emissions by their factories, Narit said.

Thailand confirms its efforts to meet the long-term goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, and net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2065.

Carbon neutrality is achieved when the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere is balanced by the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as reducing emissions from energy production and transportation, planting trees, and investing in carbon capture and storage technology.

Net zero refers to achieving a balance between all GHGs emitted into the atmosphere and all GHGs removed from the atmosphere. GHGs include CO2 as well as other gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases.

Narit said his office was using its current measures to promote factories to adopt clean energy, such as turning to use new machines that run on renewable energy.

He said new measures would require factories and businesses to use more green technologies, such as adopting the Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage technology.

The BOI would also ensure that the cold storage businesses would use environmentally friendly technologies that could reduce GHGs.

He said the current measures do not include carbon credit purchasing.

“So, the BOI has an idea of adding carbon credit procurement to the current measures for reducing GHG emissions,” Narit said.

“Companies that trade carbon credits will receive more privileges.”

He added that the BOI would also ponder enacting new measures to encourage factories to help farmers reduce the burning of their farm leftovers to reduce PM2.5 pollution.