Other Things To Consider — Practicality And Personality

Once you have established the high quality and reliability of your provider’s GHG reduction projects, consider the following before making your final decision.

• Ease Of Use - “Bundling” offsets with products or services has become a great way for businesses (on both sides) to increase market share. Many airlines now offer the option to fly “carbon neutral.” Car dealerships offer options to offset the car you buy, rent, or lease, and will include the offset purchase price on your invoice. But bundling can make offsets too easy to buy. You may not take the time to research the provider carefully. If your carbon offsets sponsor a poor quality project, you’ve wasted your money.

• Timing — Be aware that some projects may be in the planning stage. Your donation may be going toward organization and start-up. Or, you may be financing a “vintage” project that has been going on for a while but needs your funds to continue functioning.
• Portfolio — Some providers specialize in one particular activity such as wind farms, methane capture, or tree planting. But a number of providers sponsor a selection of projects, and their projects change over the months and years. Some, but not all, providers allow you to choose which projects you want your offset credits to sponsor.
• Non-Profit vs. For-Profit Providers — While many of us feel good about supporting non-profits, it turns out that in the carbon offset business, there are pros and cons to both sides. There are some instances, for instance, where non-profits limit their reduction projects to reflect the organization’s mission statement, and sometimes use offsets to fund projects already in play, creating concerns about additionality. On the other hand, non-profits often have close ties to the location or people who will receive the project, and may be better able to oversee the day-to-day functioning and anticipate potential problems.

The Drawbacks

There are, of course, ways to abuse the idea and practice of carbon offsetting. One issue is that people will simply buy themselves a guilt-free lifestyle while continuing to ignore environmentally smart choices. There is also a concern that the system caters to people with disposable income and excludes a huge segment of the population who care deeply about the environment but can’t afford to participate in carbon offset programs. Finally, as more and more organizations and businesses use the “carbon neutral” label as advertising, there is concern that this will actually become meaningless, representative only of money exchange rather than the modification of behavior to reduce emissions.