Buying Carbon Offsets – Which Company Do You Choose

Holy Moly, which one to choose? This is just a small sampling of the companies that are offering carbon offsets for sale so that you can take action against the CO2 that you emit, whether from your house, your car, airline travel or whatever the case may be. Since we have been looking at using one of these services for quite some time, I thought doing a little investigating would not only be beneficial for us, but hopefully for some of you out there as well that just don’t know what the differences are between the companies.

And for those of you that don’t have the slightest idea what I am talking about, carbon offsets aim to reduce global warming gases by allowing you to purchase credits that go towards alternative energy, tree plantings, social issues and the like – to offset the gases that you create. (No jokes here please) Simple enough, right? Ok, let’s get started looking at the different programs, using my car (a 2006 Mini) as the base example:

First up,Terra Pass. To be perfectly honest, this is one of the first companies I heard about when I started looking into these programs a little while back. For one thing, they certainly are well-known, with stories being written about them in the newspaper and many online sources. Their slogans are great and they have different programs for car, flights and your home. If I were to buy a carbon offset for my car through these guys, it would cost me $29.95 per year, and they say my car emits 3,913 lbs of CO2 per year. Now, that’s a low number because I don’t drive much; I work from home. And for that $29.95, not only do I offset my emissions, but I also get stickers for my car so I can tell the world how great I am. (Not) My money, according to Terra Pass, goes to programs such things as an entrepreneurial wind farmer receives funds to expand his plant or a small dairy farmer gets capital to install digesters on his farm to control methane emissions. Pretty cool, not too expensive, well known, and they guarantee that the money is used for what they say it will be used for.

Next up, we will look at Solar Electric Light Fund. While their site has a lot of information on it, with tons of links to outside sources, it is not exactly “user-friendly”. First of all, when I found the link to calculate my carbon emissions, the link took me to some other website with about 150 different calculators on it from all sorts of different companies. I was supposed to pick one, I guess, and then come back and give self.org $10 per ton. But since I did not go through the process of guessing at which calculator to use, I guess I could just remember what my emissions were for Terra Pass (3,913 lbs) and then mail a check for $20 to self.org. But I did not like their site, it was not easy to find out where to go to buy offsets, and the outside link to all those calculators was confusing. If you want easy to use, I would advise against them.

Thirdly, how aboutClimate Care. I really like their website, it is very easy to navigate around, the colors are nice, and they have plenty of explanations as to what they do. They put their money towards human energy, bio energy, wind energy, efficient lights, efficient stoves and rainforest restoration. Pretty cool! They have cool videos to show different projects, CO2 effects on the environment and also maps of different projects. Buying offsets through them, my car would cost a little bit more than Terra Pass did. However, this company seems to be UK based, so the numbers might be a little off. Still, their site is great and they have lots of info.

Carbon Fund is the next company on the list. Again, another great, easy to use web site that has lots of information on their different projects, calculators for figuring out your different emissions, and even a verification page that tells what they have done and what they have accomplished with your dollars. Great stuff here. They also have additional information on saving energy in general, not having to do with the offsets, so that’s an added bonus. Through them, my car would cost $29.04. Seems everyone is around the same dollar amount! Through them you can also just do a carbon reduction instead of a carbon offset, if you wanted to save a little money but still do what you could. I can recommend them.

Thanks to Nickel over at FiveCentNickel (which is a great personal finance site for those that want info on that stuff as well), I was sent a link to the Conservation Fund. Right off the bat I saw that they had some big time support: a partial list includes the Walt Disney Company, The North Face, Home Depot, Timberland, ESPN X Games, Toyota, Universal Studios, New Line Cinema, Creative Artists Agency, United Talent Agency, Gaiam Inc., Yale School of Forestry, William McDonough and Partners, and Justin Timberlake Productions. Wow! So I guess they are certainly doing some good, especially now that I saw William McDonough’s name in there. (Check out his book, Cradle to Cradle. It’s amazing.) So what do they do with the money that gets sent to them? They plant trees; 9 million of them since 2000. Amazing work. What would my car cost to offset through them? $13.40 to plant 2 trees, which would offset my 2.10 tons of emissions for a year. The added bonus is that those trees keep fighting pollution for many many years, and if I bought from them again, it would add even more trees. Pretty cool, no?

Now let’s take a look at the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. First off, it looks like it would cost $60 per year to offset my emissions. Wow, thats twice as much as the other companies! I wonder why that is, I guess I will have to do more digging on their site (if they are reading this, please contact me and let me know why!). The bonus on their site is that they have sections on greening your business, events, home, travel..and even your skiing! They invest your money in solar, wind and watershed projects. Overall a very informative site with tons of information on it, but I am a bit confused why it would cost double what everyone else wants.

Only 2 more to go…even though there are so many more that I just cannot cover them all here!

Cool Driver. Another great site with a great design. Their program seems a bit different though, where it is just a flat rate for different size cars. Since mine is a Matchbox sized car, its $36 per year. They do not take into account how many miles a year I drive or where I live, like some of the other sites do. This could be good or bad, depending on what kind of car you drive..and if you barely drive! The categories are just small car, medium car, large vehicle. Pretty basic stuff here. I do like what they do with the money though: ” So we took a new approach, using Green Tags to help build new renewable energy projects. We seek out projects under development that need to be sure of long-term Green Tag revenues to complete development. On behalf of our customers, we use our patent-pending business process to buy – in advance – all the Green Tags to be generated by the projects over their expected operating life – usually 25 years. This provides critically important up-front financial support and so helps get these projects up and running.”. Check them out for sure!

And lastly, we have a site that is tied to Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: Climate Crisis. With all sorts of references to the film, it is easily the most recognizable of the different companies due to the success of the film and Al Gore himself! (Please, Al…if you happen to read this, run for President. Please?) Anyways, the cool thing they let you do after you calculate your carbon emissions, is to pick where you want your money to go..that determines the price. I picked 100% wind as an example, which would cost me $25 per year. Not bad at all..and you know because Gore is involved with this, it’s legit. I would have no qualms putting my money here.

PHEW! That was exhausting! If I had to make a decision today, right now, I would probably choose Terra Pass or Climate Crisis, based on what I have read about them in the press and their popularity. But you can decide for yourself, and if anyone has any particular questions about any of them or any further information, please let me know. I hope everyone finds this list to be useful in helping them decide which company to use for buying their carbon offsets!

Terra Pass Solar Electric Light Fund Climate Care Carbon Fund Conservation Fund Bonneville Environmental Foundation Cool Driver Climate Crisis

technorati tags:carbon offset buying environment green pollution

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