The Township has also signed the voluntary Climate Action Charter, which calls for carbon neutrality - no emissions not offset in some way - by 2012.
Part of the deal the Township struck with ERA includes a "wholesale rate." If the Township buys carbon credits from ERA, it will get a 75 per cent discount for five years.
In 2012, says the Township report on the deal, it is estimated the municipal government will produce 4,555 tonnes of carbon emissions. The market rate is $25 per tonne, and that could cost the Township more than $113,000. If it bought credits for all of that from ERA, it would save $85,400.
Even if the Township never buys credits from the company, residents will get reforested natural park spaces, said Alberts. "Forty thousand trees is very significant, at no cost to the Township taxpayer," he said.
The Township is already host to one ERA program - the one started by Langley City.
At the end of May, the first of 25,000 native trees were planted in an off-leash dog park that the City owns in Brookswood. The tree-planting there is also expected to enhance streamside habitat.
ERA recently took some flak for its tree-planting operations in Maple Ridge. In May, the company cut down about 300 alder trees along the North Alouette River to make room for 3,600 Sitka spruce, red cedar, and cottonwood seedlings. Maple Ridge MLA Michael Sather slammed the company's tactics, saying it was destroying habitat.
The company defended the removal of dead and dying alders, saying they are opportunistic trees that thrive mainly in past clear-cut areas.