Shrinking Your Footprint- What are those carbon offsets you keep hearing about?

Carbon offsets are a way for individuals and businesses to fund large-scale projects to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere.  The “offset” concept is based on the idea that amount of carbon (or other greenhouse gas) the individual or business produces themselves can be offset by funding reduction in carbon in other places.One carbon offset is the reduction of one metric ton (1000kg) of carbon, or its equivalent in other greenhouse gasses (CO₂e).  For example, if a power plant can install equipment to reduce 100 tons of carbon then it could create 100 carbon offsets, which can then be sold to fund the equipment.  Conservation projects also create offsets; for example tree planting can absorb anywhere from 2 to 48 metric tons of carbon (2000kg to 48000kg) of carbon per tree per year, or 2 to 48 carbon offsets.

If you want to offset your personal carbon usage (called being “carbon neutral”), where do you start?  The first step is to determine the size of your “carbon footprint” by finding out how much carbon you use.  There are carbon calculators all over the web but the one we’ll use for this example is from Bonneville Environmental Foundation, and can be found on their website.  This particular calculator breaks a footprint into Home, Transportation (car), and Flight.  We used the Average US values, and came up with this…

Home- 16,366 lbs/year

Transportation- 10,383 lbs/year

Flight- 5,800 lbs/year (based on 4 roundtrip flights per year)

Total 32,459 (14,723 kg)

…so, the “average” American would need to buy 15 carbon offsets to completely balance out their own carbon footprint.

There are two markets for carbon offsets, the compliance market and the voluntary market.  In the compliance market, created by the actions of the Kyoto Protocol, high-carbon-producing companies are forced to either reduce their own output or buy offsets for that output from other companies.  The thinking is that overall carbon production will be reduced, clean companies will be rewarded, and dirty companies will either have incentives to clean up or be penalized for staying dirty.   The compliance market accounted for about $5.5 billion of offsets in 2006, or about 1.6 billion metric tons of CO₂e reductions.  The much smaller voluntary market, worth about $705 million in 2008, is made up of people who are trying to reduce their personal environmental load.  Voluntary offsets are available for either an overall lifestyle carbon contribution, or for individual events like plane flights.

Of course, carbon offsets are only as good as the projects they fund.  The carbon offset market is new and there has been a lot of fraud, so companies popped up to certify that the offsets being offered were actually cutting carbon.  Many now exist, such as The Gold Standard,  The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).   Bonneville Environmental Foundation, the company we buy offsets from for our Carbon Neutral Program, uses the Green-E certification to ensure quality.  If you’re interested in going carbon neutral it doesn’t really matter which certification you use, but make sure the company you’re buying from has some kind of third-party approval for the quality of their offsets and the projects they’re involved with.

Carbon offsets are not a substitute for living as clean as you can.  If you can reduce carbon in your life, then DO IT!  Don’t depend on outsourcing your own responsibility.  However, if you’ll be tethered to a carbon producer (like your car) for the foreseeable future then carbon offsets are one way to help you step more lightly on the planet.

Our Carbon-Neutral Program- Lower carbon, save money

We do our best to make sure your vehicle has the least possible impact on the environment, but even the best internal combustion engines emit carbon into the atmosphere.  Keeping your car well-maintained DOES reduce your carbon footprint, but that’s not enough to get below 350.  In 2007 we started a program that allows our clients to buy offsets for the carbon output of their vehicles and, to make sure folks actually take part we set it up so that you save money at the same time.

As of 2011, the members of the Tom Dwyer Automotive Carbon Neutral Program (CNP) have been responsible for removing more than 1.4 million pounds of carbon from our air. Not bad, especially when you consider that each one of these members was saving 10% on all their services here at the shop!  We want you to be part of this amazing success story, so we make it as easy as possible.  Here’s the deal…