Are Carbon Offsets for Real?

Whenever I buy an airplane ticket or reevaluate my electric bill, I think about purchasing carbon offsets...but my dad's skepticism has worn off on me a bit. I wonder if the companies selling these are serious legitimate businesses, or just some guys with a snazzy website. Luckily for me (and you), there are now companies that certify carbon offsets.

One such agency is Carbon Concierge. The Carbon Concierge has established some provider evaluation criteria, including:

• Business and Project Transparency
• Offset Quality
• Project Location and Offset Traceability
• Industry Leadership
• Business Model and Program Services Ratio
• 3rd Party Evaluation
• Education
• Social Benefit

These criteria have helped the Carbon Concierge develop a list of preferred offset providers. At this time, they recommend the following:

• Climate Trust
• Native Energy
• Carbonfund

While this does not replace doing your own due dilligence, it's nice to know that there are groups out there verifying the legitimacy of offset providers.

Image source: Business Day

UK considers personal carbon credits

The a committee of UK Members of Parliament have said that the government should go ahead with a system of personal "carbon credits" to meet emissions targets.

Under such a scheme people would be given an annual carbon limit for fuel and energy use - which they could exceed by buying credits from those who use less.

The Committee said the scheme would be more effective than taxes for cutting carbon emissions. The Committee chairman Tim Yeo said that "green" taxes, such as a petrol tax, cost poor people more because everyone - "billionaires and paupers" - paid the same amount.

Yeo said: "Under the personal carbon trading, someone who perhaps doesn't have an enormous house or swimming pool, someone who doesn't take several holidays in the Caribbean every year, will actually get a cash benefit if they keep a low carbon footprint."

Unfortunately the UK government are not funding any more research into personal carbon credits as Ministers said there were practical drawbacks to the proposal. For these drawbacks see the BBC article here.

Burt's Bees backs offsets: Company is subsidizing renewable energy certificates that its workers buy

Mar 2, 2008
The News & Observer
By John Murawski

Some companies blow hot air about saving the environment. Burt's Bees is paying its employees to embrace wind energy.

The Morrisville producer of eco-friendly creams and cleansers is encouraging its workers to support a green lifestyle by becoming "carbon neutral." Toward that end, Burt's Bees is among the first companies in the nation to subsidize its employees' purchases of renewable energy certificates, also known as carbon offsets.

The employee subsidy is akin to a company offering matching contributions to a charity that an employee chooses. In this case, the money supports for-profit wind energy producers in the U.S.

Once an exotic commodity designed to help industry meet emissions goals, renewable energy certificates are entering the mainstream.

A San Francisco seller of carbon offsets, 3Degrees, for more than a year has been promoting corporate programs to let businesses defray their employees' carbon offset costs. The Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL announced in spring 2007 that it would reimburse workers who support wind energy.

Burt's Bees plans to pay half of each employee's cost of achieving carbon neutrality in the worker's household. The company will contribute as much as $100 to offset one year of household carbon emissions. About 30 Burt's Bees workers are participating and receiving a company match to support wind energy projects nationwide, said John Replogle, Burt's Bees' CEO.

Julie Col-n, a brand design manager at Burt's Bees who lives in Raleigh, spent $60 in December to offset her household carbon footprint for one year. She received $30 from Burt's Bees. It's her first purchase of a renewable energy certificate.

"When the company's going to reimburse you for half the cost, it's an incentive," she said. "I'll do anything that I can to help the environment."

Burt's Bees, whose facilities rely on electricity from Progress Energy and Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK PRA) (NYSE:DUK) , has said it hopes to eventually use only renewable energy, or "get off the grid." Until technology improves and more renewable energy sources are available, the company, for now, has committed about $25,000 a year to subsidize wind energy production and offset its annual energy usage.

"It's a cultural thing here," Replogle said. "Our business model is quite simply to impact the triple bottom line: people, planet, profits."

Creating Demand

I was travelling for business recently and struggled with living sustainably out of a hotel room – I had some successes and some failures. For example, I found a great way to combat purchasing bottled water – refills from the filtered water in the gym rather than the slightly rusty water from the hotel faucet.

One thing I was not able to do successfully was recycle…especially paper and plastic bottles. Every time I threw something recyclable away, I cringed! What did I do about this? Nothing. What should I have done? Talked to the hotel about instituting recycling programs: either in room, or at least in each elevator lobby/ice machine alcove.

It’s well known that the U.S. is a heavily consumer-driven society. If we the consumers make our demands known, soon enough, suppliers will begin to meet the demand. One way to do this is through corporate travel programs – while each individual user still has impact, a company with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of employees may be able to make a bigger mark.

Some companies have corporate travel policies that support environmental/social responsibility:

• Preferred rental of hybrid automobiles
• Carbon offset purchasing
• Preference for hotels with green energy/green buildings

Not only should we ourselves create demand with our dollars (and words), but also, we need to encourage our companies to increase their dedication to sustainable travel initiatives.

Carbon offsetting through your paypacket

It was reported today that the UK Royal Mail (our postal service) is leading the way over here in enabling its staff to offset their carbon emissions.

Royal Mail employees can now offset their emissions by donating money (tax-free) directly from their pay packet to a charity called The Woodland Trust. This money enables the Trust to plant trees in their 1,000 UK woods.

Royal Mail have set up new carbon calculator called 'Ollie' for employees who contribute to the scheme, using the calculation they find out how many trees they would have to plant to offset their annual carbon footprint and to get tips about how to reduce their emissions.

This calculator asks employees about their home energy usage, as well as car and air travel before calculating how many trees will need to be planted to help offset their carbon footprints.

Only 12% of the UK wooded, compared to 46% on average in Europe. Planting trees more trees will create vital habitats for more species, it also traps pollution, generates oxygen, stabilises soil and forms a stunning part of the landscape.

The disappointing element of this story is however that the Royal Mail employ some 185,000 staff and only 130 of them are currently taking part in the scheme. However, about 50,000 of their staff are currently signed up to payroll giving schemes connected to other charities. There is therefore much scope for giving within the company once the awareness of carbon offsetting is raised.

The principle behind such schemes strikes me as a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of carbon emissions through the workplace, which should then filter down to the home and the wider community. Carbon offsetting through payroll has the potential to be viewed as an incentive for recruitment and an endorsement of a company's environmental ethics.

The challenge is now for other businesses to offer this carbon offsetting opportunity to their staff.

Any thoughts on this posting? Are you seeing similar initiatives in the US?

Charge it Green

For some time now there have been several credit cards out there that make donations to nonprofit organizations and charities everytime you make a purchase using their card. In most cases the amount donated is based on a percentage of the purchase, usually half a percentage point and many of these cards target a specific orgnaisation such as The Humane Society, the global fight against AIDS, Defenders of Wildlife, etc.

Working Assets Visa Card gives donations to a platform of 50 organisations; Civil Rights, Peace & International Freedom, Economic & Social Justice and the Envioronment. The cardholders vote every year for the organisations that will recieve donations and they donate 10 cents with every purchase!

here is a link to the Ideal Bite article on these cards http://www.idealbite.com/tiplibrary/archives/whats_in_your_wallet/

Just Recently there has been several financial institutions that are offering cards that are specifically going GREEN!

Bank of America has teamed up with Brighter Planet to offer a credit card that will buy carbon offsets; they will offset a ton of carbon for every thousand dollars that is spent using the card.

MetaBank issued a Green Mastercard, consumers earn a new account activation bonus equivalent to 10,000 pounds of CO2 offsets and then for every net dollar spent, five pounds of CO2 will be retired and for every net dollar spent on gasoline and household utilities, 10 pounds of CO2 will be offset.

GE's Money Earth Rewards Platinum Mastercard contributes one percent of their card purchases to buy greenhouse gas emissions.

Wells Fargo will buy 6000 kilowatt hours of green power for every 5000 points earned using it's credit card.

Read the November article in Environmental Leader
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/11/30/bofa-teams-with-brighter-planet-on-green-credit-card/

But if you really want to dig to the truth behind the "Mega-Banks" that issue these credit cards (and we all should), what kind of activities and political organisations their money support then read the RealMoney article.
http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/creditcards.cfm

Clean Your Work Air!

Plants clean the air! That is why sometimes when we buy carbon credits to offset our traveling, the credits are actual tree plantings. But in an indoor environment we are often beset with unhealthy airborn chemicals such as Benzyne, Carbon Monoxide and Formldehyde!

Nasa has published a study that quantifies how plants clean the air and which plants are most effective at doing this and concluded that the placement of plants may prevent "sick building syndrome". The recommendation is one 6 inch plant for every 100 sq feet of space.

Here is a link to the study http://www.zone10.com/tech/NASA/Fyh.htm