Walk Like a Dinosaur: Carbon Footprints

Posted by Lisa Carey

Carbon offsets, carbon footprints — what you should know about carbon emissions and products and services like Terra Pass and CCX, companies that offer products and services to businesses and individuals to for carbon offsetting.

Carbon offsets are a way of going carbon neutral by offsetting the environmental impact of energy use that leaves damaging carbon footprints on our planet. Carbon offsets are purchases that attempt to mitigate the carbon footprints. Try thinking of carbon offsets as a financial instrument that represents efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions caused by using electricity and transportation among other things. One carbon offset represents a reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide or other equivalent greenhouse gases.
The ideal way to reduce your carbon footprints starts at home, in your car or at the office. Simple steps like reusing and recycling, reducing car trips, buying locally, lowering the thermostat and choosing energy efficient products from light bulbs, to cars to appliances can reduce your carbon footprints. Websites like earthlab.com offer a carbon footprint calculator to estimate your negative impact on the environment. Once you know your carbon footprint and you’ve started using green ideas to reduce your carbon footprint, carbon offsets are a way to mitigate the remaining emissions impact.
There are both large and small markets for carbon offsets. Larger markets include large companies and governments that buy carbon offsets to comply with regulations on caps of the amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. These larger markets purchased almost $5.5 billion of carbon offsets in 2006. This represents around 1.6 billion metric ton reduction in CO2 emissions.
There are other smaller markets where individuals, families and businesses can purchase carbon offsets to mitigate the impact of their own greenhouse gas emissions. On this smaller scale, there is still a huge green impact. In 2006 alone, close to $91 million of carbon offsets were purchased that calculates to roughly 24 million metric tons of reduced CO2 emissions.
Terms You Should Know: Carbon Offsets
Source: Source refers to the types of technologies or projects that are used to provide the offsets. Sources may include renewable energy, energy efficiency, land-use or reforestation.
Vintage: Vintage refers to the year in which the reduction will occur.
Certification: Certification refers to the system under which a carbon offset is registered or certified. There are several systems and sets of protocols and each has a method for verifying the amount of emissions reduced. Examples of carbon-offset systems include The Chicago Climate Exchange, often referred to as the CCX, and the Clean Development Mechanism or CDM.
How is Carbon Offset Money Used to Neutralize Carbon Imprints?
Projects vary but the most common types include renewable energy projects including hydroelectric, wind farms or biomass energy. Other examples include destruction of industrial pollutants and landfill methane, forestry projects or fuel switching.
Meet CCX
The Chicago Climate Exchange is the trailblazer of carbon offsets. The world’s first and the only carbon market in America, CCX is a voluntary market like the NASDAQ. However, instead of trading stocks, CCX trades emission rights. CCX is basically a cap and trade system, which means there is a cap on emissions, and companies have to reduce emissions by 6% within a certain time frame. Companies who reduce emissions by more than 6% can sell their extra carbon credits on the market to companies who didn’t make the required reductions. This results in the same overall reduction but encourages faster reductions. CCX users include Ford Motor Co., IBM, Honeywell as well as some cities and universities.
Today carbon offsetting is voluntary but most foresee, and many cry out for, green laws in the future that require more reductions in emissions. Many companies join in to be ahead of the requirements of the caps they feel sure are coming.
One service that offers individuals and businesses carbon offsetting products is TerraPass. While many large companies and institutions utilize CCX and others to offset their carbon footprint, TerraPass helps the “little guys.” TerraPass uses money from member purchases to fund greenhouse gas reduction projects such as methane digesters or wind farms. TerraPass has specific products to allow members to offset their carbon footprints in certain areas.
TerraPass products include:
Road TerraPass to offset car emissions.
Flight TerraPass is for offsetting airplane emissions.
Home TerraPass to offset home energy use.
Business TerraPass is for organizations.
Wedding TerraPass is to offset weddings and other events.
There are critics of carbon offsets who question the benefits and argue that allowing offsetting makes people feel better about their CO2 emissions. Everyone, including proponents of carbon offsetting, can agree that it is important to become of aware of carbon footprints and the means by which to reduce them. For those areas that can’t yet be eliminated, carbon offsetting allows a means of funding eco-friendly projects. Carbon offsetting is a way to use green to go green.

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