EDMONTON -- Generations after his roving forebears packed fur, buffalo meat, merchandise and their belongings around in Red River carts, trading still inspires Bob Coulter.

"You're improving the quality of life for Alberta," the son of retired Métis senator Thelma Chalifoux said in describing his venture on new economic frontiers of environmental products and digital commerce.

Emissions Credit Corp. -- a partnership of the Edmonton entrepreneur, Didsbury peer Marjorie Malinowski and private investors -- deals on a market emerging from regulation of industrial carbon-dioxide exhaust blamed for global warming.

"We're an aggregator," Coulter explained as the firm staged an open house last week at its trading post in Malinowski's hometown beside the highway between Edmonton and Calgary.

The operation collects a byproduct of greenhouse gas emissions control -- "offsets" -- in rural Alberta for sale to urban corporations.

The Alberta Climate Change and Emissions Management Amendment Act, passed last spring, made the province a pioneer in the field.

The new regime requires industrial sites that vent more than 100,000 tonnes a year of carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere to reduce emissions by 12 per cent.

Industrial emitters have three choices:

- They can physically cut their exhaust;

- They can make contributions, of $15 for every tonne of emissions that exceed the reduction requirement, to a technology fund for developing cleaner operating methods;

- They can buy offsets or credits from other Alberta enterprises that prove they reduced carbon-dioxide venting since the province started monitoring emissions in 2002 under initial climate change legislation.

The value of offsets is effectively set at $15 per tonne of carbon-dioxide emissions cuts by the technology fund charge.

Coulter's firm is one of five currently out drumming up offsets. More than a dozen tried to break into the trade since Alberta started enacting carbon emissions policies, he estimated.

The environmental brokers are forming a trade association that expects to be up and running this fall. The group's main early mission will be to ensure the market develops by encouraging the province to enforce environmental requirements and compliance deadlines, Coulter indicated.

Key target dates in the current schedule are Dec. 31 for more than 100 Alberta industrial emitters to record and report their performance on the reduction target, then next March 31 for making technology fund contributions or buying offsets.

There could be a "mad scramble" to comply -- and a brisk start to the offsets trade -- if the province enforces the March 31 deadline, Coulter predicted. The legislation includes fines for every day that emitters fail to obey the rules.

Since last spring, environmental brokers fanned out into rural Alberta to harvest credits that farmers have been earning and recording since the 2002 start of provincial carbon-dioxide emissions monitoring.

Farms adopted an array of environmental improvements, from better control of livestock manure to "zero-till" cultivation practices that curb carbon-dioxide emissions by reducing disturbance of soil.

The new market shows early signs of thriving, Coulter reported.

His brokerage expected a slow start. "We were surprised," he said. By June, 500 farmers signed up to supply carbon-dioxide credits to his firm. The number since grew to 800, and his dealership has 40 purchasing agents out scouring the countryside for more recruits.

His firm boasts taking an early lead in the new environmental broker pack by selling only "live credits," or real emissions reductions instead of promises to deliver in future.

The dealership only traffics in documented carbon-dioxide cuts, independently verified by an international environmental auditing firm, Coulter said.

The operation also includes a copyrighted computer software program, called EC Tracker, for recording the trade and maintaining the associated documentation.

Emissions Credit Corp. also boasts a financial sign that it is on the right track. The dealership has obtained business insurance, against losses such as transaction errors and emissions, through Lloyd's of London, Coulter said.

Farmers that sign up as emissions credit suppliers are promised a 60-per-cent share of the offset sale price. The commercial market value is expected to be somewhat below the value of $15 per tonne set by the government. Dealers predict industrial buyers will naturally demand discounts to cover risks and costs of participating in the new market.

The government's rules limit the size of the fledgling emissions credit trade by requiring offset suppliers to be Alberta operations. But even the restricted market will likely grow rapidly to $3 million to $5 million a year and has potential to reach at least $10 million, Coulter predicted.

"We've got a large number of people to participate in this new value-added green economy," Coulter said. Saskatchewan farmers are lined up for the environmental products trade to spread as soon as their government follows Alberta's example and adopts climate change regulation, he added.