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Just finished college and can't find a job? May I suggest an exciting new career in the world of carbon offsets?

While it may not be an industry with a long history or much sex appeal, it does have huge growth potential and serious earning power. In fact, it may soon be catching the eye of laid-off investment bankers everywhere.

Can you say CO{-2} derivative swaps?

It's one thing to commit your government to being carbon-neutral; it's another to make it happen. To actually do it means navigating the murky world of carbon offsets, which is precisely what the B.C. government is doing.

It created the Pacific Carbon Trust in the spring of 2008 to fund offset projects in the province. Since then, the new Crown corporation has not attracted much attention. But that is likely to change now that the trust has just begun spending taxpayer dollars on an offset strategy that has been criticized elsewhere in the world for, among other things, having dubious environmental benefits.

Even the corporation's chief executive officer concedes that when it comes to regulations, the offset industry resembles the Wild West.

“I think it's fair to say that not all offsets are created equal,” CEO Scott MacDonald said the other day. “The quality of the offsets can vary pretty dramatically. Some are more easily measurable than others. We're looking for those with the highest level of predictability and assurance. We won't compromise the standards that have been set by our Ministry of Environment.”

Sounds wonderful in theory. But Mr. MacDonald concedes his Crown corporation is just dipping its toes into this whole business. It recently purchased its first bundle of offsets from a B.C. company. It will soon have to embark on a more ambitious purchasing regime if the B.C. government is going to meet its target of becoming carbon-neutral across all of government-related bodies in the next few years.

Phase one is to offset emissions generated by government travel, estimated to be about 35,000 tonnes annually. The credits just purchased by the trust will allow the government to offset 330,000 tonnes of emissions over five years, more than enough to neutralize the emissions created through travel.

It now gets tougher, as the number of public-sector organizations committed to carbon neutrality widens. By 2011, about one million tones of emission credits will need to be purchased to offset the CO{-2} generated by this group of government bodies and institutions.

Phase three will include private-sector companies. This means is that the B.C. government is going to be looking to buy millions of dollars worth of offsets over the next few years. It currently has a budget to pay an average of about $25 per tonne of offsets.

(An offset company sells CO{-2} credits by going into other businesses or industries and finding ways to reduce their emissions. Any reductions beyond a certain baseline are carbon savings that can be sold.)

As mentioned earlier, companies caught up in the worldwide, go-green mania have been rushing to buy offsets. In a world of an increasingly environment-conscious consumer, there is a financial benefit to being seen as green. To be able to stick a carbon-neutral sticker on your product can give you a leg up in the marketplace.

But the offset world has been hurt and discredited by stories of brokers selling offsets from questionable projects of little environmental value, or, as bad, selling the same offsets multiple times to various companies.

Mr. MacDonald says the B.C. government plans to avoid those problems by registering all its purchases so it is the sole owner of the offsets. The registry, he assures, will prevent offset brokers from selling the same credits multiple times.

He said the government will also ensure the reductions that offset companies are selling are real and verifiable. Currently, standards and guidelines across the industry fluctuate wildly. Meantime, new companies are being formed every day to take advantage of the current green push and the money flowing from it.

It's been estimated that the demand for voluntary carbon offsets alone will reach an annual level of 400 metric tones of CO{-2} or its equivalent by next year. In 2007, the carbon offset market doubled in value to $64-billion (U.S.). This is up from $11-billion in 2005. The worldwide market could be worth nearly $100-billion by 2010.

You can see why people are jumping into the field.

“It's difficult to say where it's all going to end up,” Mr. MacDonald admits. “Most expect the cost of offsets to rise as demand increases and supply decreases. We'll see. But we're going to regulate this as tightly as we can here in B.C.”

Otherwise, it will be rife for abuse.