CO2 and you
according to TerraPass – a carbon consumption calculator and offset provider – my flights to Zambia and Nevis (as well as half a dozen flights within the province last year) total 31,232 miles and make me personally responsible for 623 gallons of fuel consumption and 12,180 additional lbs of CO2 in our atmosphere.
i like to think i’m pretty green. i eat very little red meat and a lot of local organic produce. i recycle. i don’t drive much. and i wash my clothes in cold water, turn off lights (and the electric blanket!) during the day… but i have been doing a lot of flying lately. the fact that that won’t be getting much better in the near future has prompted me to do a bit of research into carbon offset contribution options.
i love this idea, but i’m stuck in the “where is my money really going?” black hole. the David Suzuki Foundation has a list of carbon offset providers and i have no idea how to tell one from another.
does anyone have personal experience with this? any research advice or recommendations?
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March 27th, 2007 at 5:56 am
Hi Jennifer,
I work for TerraPass, so you’ll have to take this advice with the necessary grain of salt, but here are criteria that are typically offered for evaluating carbon offset providers:
1) Far and away the most important factor is offset quality. Low-quality offsets don’t offer any environmental benefit. Unfortunately, this is a technical subject that can be hard for non-experts to judge. The following criteria can be useful proxies.
2) Look for third-party verification of the offset provider. An outside auditor should be reviewing the vendor and verifying some basic criteria of offset quality. These days, however, a lot of vendors claim to be third-party verified, so look a little deeper. Does the auditor have any expertise in carbon offsets? Has the offset vendor actually published a verification report for every year they’ve been in operation?
3) Look for offsets that are “maturity matched.” This just means that the reductions actually take place in the same time period that you make your purchase. Some offset providers promise reductions years in the future (this isn’t always a bad thing, by the way, but it is a drawback).
4) Make sure the vendor publishes all carbon purchases they they make, including date and amount.
5) Avoid tree-planting projects. These have gotten a bad rap in the scientific community for a variety of reasons.
Hope this helps,
Adam Stein
Co-founder, TerraPass
March 27th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Jen,
Mel pointed me here. I recently purchased offsets from TerraPass for my travels. The experience was good.
Cheers,
Luke
March 27th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
My Big Client is using Bullfrog Powered to offset a big event they are having. The Barenaked Ladies also use this company.
April 4th, 2007 at 8:22 am
[...] CO2 and you [...]
May 8th, 2007 at 8:20 am
[...] after considering my available options somewhat thoroughly, i decided to offset the CO2 produced by my flights to Zambia and Nevis with TerraPass. [...]