Carbon Credit Services for Strata Corporations

0:00 – Meet Julien Gagnon of Foreseeson Technology

0:01 Ryan Grant: Hello everyone, it's Ryan Grant with B.C. Strata Tech again. I now have Julien with us from Foreseeson Technologies Inc. They cover carbon credit services, which will be useful for strata corporations. Hello Julien.

0:16 Julien Gagnon: Hi Ryan, nice to meet you.

0:19 Ryan Grant: Nice to meet you, welcome on the show. And you have some pretty exciting and unique information for stratas that I don't think many stratas have considered.

0:30 Julien Gagnon: Yes, actually you're correct. We've talked to many stratas and there's still a lot of confusion out there, and also a lot of people are not aware of the situation with the carbon credit, so we're glad to be able to explain that to people and guide them through the whole process.

0:42 – EV Charging History and Aggregator Model

0:50 Julien Gagnon: Just to give you a bit of a background on our company: we've been involved in supplying and installing and supporting EV charging stations since 2015, so we've been in that business for about five years now. And the service that we offer with carbon credits, we started that about two years ago when it became a new regulation by the BC government. So at that point we became what we call an aggregator.

1:18 So the government now allows companies like us to take a number of customers out there and aggregate, or pool, all their energy reports into one submission that we submit to the government, and then they turn that into carbon credits that we then redistribute to each one of the customers that we serve with that service. So the way it works is, we've done that already two years ago with our first aggregation that we did.

1:52 And the nice thing about... well, one of the difficult things about government credit is, once you have these credits approved, then you have to... they don't have any monetary value unless you sell them, so you have to be able to sell them.

2:06 – Selling Pooled Credits to Oil Companies

2:06 Ryan Grant: In the... where's the market, the open market?

2:07 Julien Gagnon: Exactly. You have to have the contacts, the right connections, which we have. We have a team here that has connections with energy companies out there, or mostly oil companies, that are looking at buying these carbon credits. So we had our first sale of carbon credits over a year ago now. We were able to pool somewhere around 370 credits in the first year.

2:32 Ryan Grant: Holy...

2:32 Julien Gagnon: And yeah, so that was our first dry run at it. In the second year, then we went way over a thousand credits with the pool that we assembled. And obviously this pool is going to grow every year because people keep using the chargers more and more.

2:51 Ryan Grant: Yes.

2:51 Julien Gagnon: We add more customers to the pool. So eventually that pool is going to grow pretty big, because the buyers of these carbon credits are large oil companies that are not interested in purchasing a small amount of credits. They're not interested in 10 or 15, or even 100 credits, or even a thousand credits.

3:09 – Signing Up and Government Paperwork

3:09 Julien Gagnon: For them that is small, they buy like 20,000.

3:16 Ryan Grant: Yes.

3:16 Julien Gagnon: And so that's why it's difficult to attract these companies and do the transaction. But we're lucky to have a couple of oil companies; we have an open standing offer with them, so as soon as we have credits available we just turn around and they're ready to purchase them. So that's a big plus for us.

3:41 Ryan Grant: And is it easy for the stratas to go onto your website, and is there like an online process?

3:50 Julien Gagnon: Yeah, there is an online form process. We have a website, it's at greencredits.foreseeson.com, and people can sign up with a form there and participate in our program. Because what we do is something that helps a lot of stratas. First of all, the process of filing the reports with the government and getting the carbon credit is very complex. You have a number of forms that you have to fill out, you have to submit them, and as soon as there's the smallest mistake then somebody returns it to you saying, you know, please correct this or please change this on your form.

4:28 So it can get very tedious and very complicated.

4:32 Ryan Grant: Yes. So you need some, and some I guess some experience, some practice, right?

4:40 Julien Gagnon: That's what we had to go through in the first couple of years, a lot of trial and error. So now we have that process nailed down pretty much to a T. We know exactly what they're looking for, we know what mistakes not to make, so that streamlines the whole process and makes it a lot easier and a lot faster.

4:51 – Credit Pooling and Negotiating Better Prices

4:59 Ryan Grant: Awesome. Is there also, yeah, I was also wondering, is there a way for stratas to kind of choose where their credits are sold to, or do you not have that option yet as a company?

5:14 Julien Gagnon: Yeah, they don't really have that option. Once the carbon credits are approved then they get transferred into our pool, and then we turn around and what we do is we look around for the best price for these credits. And obviously the market value goes up.

5:30 Ryan Grant: Yes.

5:33 Julien Gagnon: The more credits you have, the higher price you can command, you can get. If you only have 10 or 20 credits you can't really drive the price that much, but if you have, you know, thousands of credits, then you can definitely sit at the table and say, hey, you know, this is the price we're looking for, and you can negotiate better.

5:53 Ryan Grant: Perfect. And I guess with EVs becoming, you know, more mainstream, and also other kinds of offset things that the government brings out here in BC, you see this ramping up quite a bit in BC specifically.

6:09 Julien Gagnon: Yes, definitely, needing to get those credits and sell them.

6:14 – Rising Carbon Credit Market Values

6:15 Julien Gagnon: Yeah, we can see that ramping up. There's a few things that are going up on a regular basis. First of all, the market value of these carbon credits has been steadily going up in the last few years. It went from, you know, in the $300 range per credit all the way to right now, close to $500 per credit market value.

6:38 And then we, yeah, we expect that by next year the value is going to go even probably over $500 per credit, because this is also linked to how much the government is charging these oil companies in terms of penalties when you don't meet the government standard, right. So that's going up every year. The other thing that's going to go up also is the number of people, number of stratas, that have chargers in place, and how much people are using these chargers.

7:09 So the more people are using the chargers, the more carbon credits you accumulate at the end of the year. And obviously that's going to keep growing as more and more people, you know, get the electric vehicle in their building, and as they keep plugging their car into these chargers. And these numbers are going to keep going up, which is great for the stratas, because then they can, you know, make some extra income from this, right, to help offset their strata fees and other aspects, you know, repair bills that they have in the complexes.

7:37 – Two Income Streams From EV Chargers

7:41 Ryan Grant: Yeah, absolutely, every little bit helps now for sure.

7:46 Julien Gagnon: So there's actually two sources of income on these chargers for the strata. You can collect money at the source when people are charging with their vehicle right there at that time they're charging, and also at the end of the year they can expect another return from filing their carbon credits and getting them sold in the market.

8:07 Ryan Grant: Wow. And like you said, it's going to increase most likely for a few years now until the market kind of settles, as you know, everyone's kind of jumped in to sell credits. So, you know, prices will continue potentially going up, which is great for the stratas.

8:23 Julien Gagnon: Oh yeah, absolutely, we see a lot of positive aspects of the whole thing.

8:35 Ryan Grant: Yeah, perfect. Is there anything else you'd like our viewers to know about it, other than how they can get to your website and they can fill out that form?

8:38 – Closing Advice for Interested Stratas

8:44 Julien Gagnon: Yeah, no, other than that, we're happy to discuss all the details with any strata interested in that process, and answer some more questions if they have issues that they can't figure out yet. But you know, we're there to help, and we definitely have the experience and the knowledge to get that done.

9:02 Ryan Grant: Perfect. Well then, thank you so much for your time today, it's really appreciated. And this is a new, cool initiative for stratas to look into, right? Something brand new for them that I don't think most stratas have ever heard of, or contemplated for themselves, right? This is great. So thank you so much Julien, and we'll definitely have you on again.

9:27 Julien Gagnon: Thank you Ryan.

9:27 Ryan Grant: Yes, take care Julien, have a good day.

9:31 Julien Gagnon: You too.