Trading

{
  "id": "MLC-T-ENV-028463",
  "term": "Trading",
  "field": "Environment",
  "definition": "1. An innovative approach to achieve water quality goals more efficiently. Trading is based on the fact that sources in a watershed can face very different costs to control the same pollutant. Trading programs allow facilities facing higher pollution control costs to meet their regulatory obligations by purchasing environmentally equivalent (or superior) pollution reductions from another source at lower cost, thus achieving the same water quality improvement at lower overall cost.\n\n2. A market-based approach to achieving water quality standards in which a point source purchases pollutant reduction credits from another point source or a nonpoint source in the same watershed that are then used to meet the point source’s pollutant discharge obligations. To be creditable to the point source purchaser, the credits must reflect actual, achieved pollutant reductions in excess of the credit seller’s baseline. Under certain circumstances, a point source buyer may have to purchase more than one pound of upstream pollutant reduction to equal a pound discharged at its outfall.",
  "subject": "Water",
  "references": [
    "NPDES Permit Writers Manual Glossary",
    "Water Quality Trading Toolkit for Permit Writers Glossary"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/environment/trading/"
}