Air travel is a major contributor to climate change. Offsets are a small part of a larger solution.

Today at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) we are launching the Climate Passport program allowing travelers to offset the impact of their air travel through an airport kiosk. This will be the world’s first airport kiosk—giving people the opportunity to calculate the environmental impact of their flights and purchase carbon offsets to address that impact while at the airport.

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“Our ‘weight-loss’ challenge is a simple, fun way to get people thinking about how
they can easily join in the fight against global warming.”

-Regina Farrell, Native Energy

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Cows Operate Power Company as Side Business
Onion Farmer takes $2.5 Million to Bank For Electricity Production
More Carbon Sequestration Needed: Farmers Paid to Not Plant

Every day there’s more news of the alternative energy that farms can make. From cow poop. From crop residues. From onion skins. From chicken feathers. From wind royalties. From solar power.

But you read cleantechnica.

Of course farmers will benefit from the climate bill. HR2434 is designed to make it cheaper to switch to low carbon energy than to keep using fossil fuels that destroy our future.

Farmers; however, are stuck with Fox News and Rush and the Heritage Foundation and CATO. They are told

Your energy cost will soar under socialist Al Gore climate bill!

So they worry. What Fox News and Rush won’t let them know is that…

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It’s hard being an environmental celebrity, especially when you are Royal too. People want to see you, but that can mean racking up a lot of carbon miles.

So Prince Charles had his Aston Martin converted to run on bio-ethanol made from aged English wine, and his Audi, Jaguar, and Range Rover all run on what the English call old cooking fat.

In the US we call this reused cooking oil because that’s much hipper and greener sounding, and marketing is everything.

So now Prince Charles is driven in the royal Jaguar that runs on homemade biodiesel and, for a little variety; in the Land Rover or the Audi, in a carbon conscious fashion.

But what about his airplane travel? Well…

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With overwhelming support from the general American people and a President who says that we really need to do something about climate change, the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill on climate change on June 20th. A victory! Or maybe not. The bill is a major step forward in gesture in many ways.

However, the House dropped or changed many instrumental parts of what is needed to reduce or limit global warming.

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We’ll be joined by hundreds of thousands of people heading out to enjoy great band performances. Of course, that also means hundreds of thousands of people eating packaged food and drinking bottled water (and other substances) and all the waste that entails. And let’s not forget the tons of fossil fuels burned just getting there.

Fortunately, many festival programmers and organizers have been working behind the scenes for years to try to mitigate some of the environmental impact of these annual throngs of music-lovers. They all adhere to the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ principles at the heart of greening their festivals, but that is just the beginning. Most are upping the ante on green initiatives.

Here I highlight just five of this summer’s festivals and their creative and inspiring eco-initiatives:

1. Bumbershoot, Seattle

Bumbershoot is a leader in green festivals. To begin with, organizers have creatively applied the re-use principle by turning their old signage into new Bumbershoot bags. A small local business called Alchemy Goods turns old rubber and vinyl into bags.

All this is after the festival signs have already been used multiple times. First they print most of their new signage locally on 100% recyclable material using 100% VOC and solvent-free inks. Then they re-use a large percentage of the previous year’s signs for the current year’s promotion.

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We’re coming at you live with more special Red, Green, and Blue coverage from New York’s very own Wall Street Green Trading Summit.

It’s Lunchtime now at the WSGTS, and I just emerged from another dizzying bout of acronyms to find myself totally shocked by how little I know about big market investing. Fortunately, I stumbled on Open Carbon World, an open source project on carbon footprints that is here at the conference.  They have accumulated the following glossary of terms, acronyms and etc. to help novices like me navigate these crazy fast talking presentations.  If I drop one or two over the next few days, please forgive the frazzled brain, and give them a look up!  

>> More Wall Street Green Trading Summit:  The Species Bank?, Carbon Markets, Solar Panels and the Electric Grid

OCW is presenting tomorrow, so I’ll reserve final judgment ’til then, but expect a post on some sweet open source ideas having to do with footprints and offsets.

OCW is presenting tomorrow, so I’ll reserve final judgment ’til then, but expect a post on some sweet open source ideas having to do with footprints and offsets.

OK, so Carbon Trading, huh?

The murky mysteries of the market continue to elude me.  The second session today was all about the carbon offset market: where the money is, where the investment opportunities are and will be, and who is making the rules about what a carbon offset even means.

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We’re coming at you live with special Red, Green, and Blue coverage from New York’s very own Wall Street Green Trading Summit.

The WSGTS claims to be the longest running and most comprehensive environmental market event in the industry (and we have no reason to doubt them!)

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I wrote about the TerraPass carbon offset chocolate offerings on Shaping Youth with a jaundiced eye toward greenwashing, since the main Bloomsberry factory is located in New Zealand, but good news! Bloomsberry chocolate manufacturer CEO Paul Pruett confirmed the TerraPass chocolate that’s sold in the U.S. is produced in the U.S.!

It’s evidently part of their business model to stay local with manufacturing, in addition to the chocolate’s recyclable wrapper and 15 tips for reducing your carbon footprint. Even better? Bloomsberry reports so far they’ve sold enough chocolate bars to offset the equivalent of:

814 passenger vehicles for 1 year
10,333 barrels oil
588 homes for 1 year
31 acres of forest preserved from deforestation
23.2 railcars worth of coal

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There’s a lot of information out there about carbon offsets, but how can you know that purchasing carbon offsets is actually reducing overall carbon emissions globally?  Where does the money go?  You certainly don’t have the time to research all companies offering to offset your carbon footprint (In the SF bay area alone - 3Degrees, Terrapass, LiveNeutral, The Carbon Neutral Company, Greatest Planet…), but yet you want to do just that. 

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The winter holidays are almost upon us, and whether you’re celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or the holiday(s) of another tradition, you may still be stumped for gifts to give this year… especially gifts that fit your own (and the recipients’) values.

For the past few years, I’ve moved away from buying “stuff” as much as possible, and focused on giving the gift of giving (say that three times fast!). That is, I look for gifts that contribute to larger causes. After writing about ‘TisBest gift cards a couple of weeks ago, I started brainstorming on other good “gifts that keep on giving” for the “treehugger” on your list.

• Adopt an Animal: This has become my mainstay for my neice and nephews.  We don’t get them a pet; rather, we make a donation to the Missouri Humane Society’s Longmeadow Rescue Ranch “Barn Buddy” program. You can check with your local Humane Society or ASPCA chapter for similar programs. If wildlife is more your thing, Defenders of Wildlife has “adoption” gifts featuring wolves, penuins, polar bears, and other animals.

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]]> http://sustainablog.org/2008/12/16/five-green-holiday-gifts-that-keep-on-giving/feed/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/17/atlanta-neighborhood-certified-as-countrys-first-carbon-neutral-zone/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/17/atlanta-neighborhood-certified-as-countrys-first-carbon-neutral-zone/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:00:52 +0000 Becky Striepe http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/17/atlanta-neighborhood-certified-as-countrys-first-carbon-neutral-zone/
[Image Credit: jesse4948 on Flickr, under a Creative Commons license]

This past Friday was an exciting day here in Atlanta! The historic Corner-Virginia Highland area announced its certification as a Carbon Neutral Zone. Teaming up with Verus Carbon Neutral, the businesses in this area completely offset their carbon emissions to create the U.S.’s first Carbon Neutral Zone. So what does that really mean?

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]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/17/atlanta-neighborhood-certified-as-countrys-first-carbon-neutral-zone/feed/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/11/12/are-retail-carbon-offsets-working/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/11/12/are-retail-carbon-offsets-working/#comments Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:50:26 +0000 Jennifer Kaplan http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/11/12/are-retail-carbon-offsets-working/ There’s no doubt that carbon offsets are in the news.  Just this morning, the New York Times reported that Goldman Sachs jumped on the offsets bandwagon with investments in two offset companies.  But, you still don’t hear too much about retail carbon offset efforts, beyond voluntary add-on programs for airline and rental car companies.  TerraPass, a leading originator and retailer of carbon credits and carbon offsets, however, just released its 2009 carbon offset “portfolio,” including products for purchase through the TerraPass website. They also still host voluntary offset program for various travel and retail industry partners.


But, possibly more significantly, TerraPass also just announced the formation of TerraPass Carbon Management Services that has already signed 10 long-term contracts representing over 2.5 million metric tons of carbon reductions, and has built “a robust pipeline of new projects:”

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]]> http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/11/12/are-retail-carbon-offsets-working/feed/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/03/eco-conscious-holidays-travel/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/03/eco-conscious-holidays-travel/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:00:40 +0000 Becky Striepe http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/03/eco-conscious-holidays-travel/
[Image credit: Joshua Davis at Flickr under a Creative Commons license]

It’s that time of year! There are parties and big meals to plan, gifts to get together, and travel plans to finalize. How is a person supposed to live green during such a busy time of year? This week, we’re going to take a look at ways to have a fabulous holiday season without giving up those Earth-friendly ideals. It doesn’t have to feel like a sacrifice!

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]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/03/eco-conscious-holidays-travel/feed/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/10/16/making-carbon-offsets-actually-work-affordably/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/10/16/making-carbon-offsets-actually-work-affordably/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:57:34 +0000 Paul Smith http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/10/16/making-carbon-offsets-actually-work-affordably/ Carbon offsets are a great idea, in theory. Buy an offset, which goes to renewable energy or carbon absorbing projects, and increase the health of the planet, right?

Not so clear cut, unfortunately. The path from offset purchase to impact made has been muddied by lack of transparency on how much of your money paid goes to purchasing actual offsets versus to the company you bought them from, does it actually help further already happening projects, and might it actually be going towards an offset that’s already been purchased by someone else, or is expired?

It’s this smoke and mirrors that’s both made people distrustful of these schemes, and in the process missed out on more actual impact being made. Village Green, a company that previously had declined to start an offset program for just these reasons, is now launching one of their own, tomorrow, with complete transparency and at a much more affordable price.

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]]> http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/10/16/making-carbon-offsets-actually-work-affordably/feed/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/10/14/uk-says-rich-nations-should-pay-billions-every-year-for-rainforest/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/10/14/uk-says-rich-nations-should-pay-billions-every-year-for-rainforest/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:31:30 +0000 Meg Hamill http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/10/14/uk-says-rich-nations-should-pay-billions-every-year-for-rainforest/ A UK commissioned report stated Tuesday that wealthy countries should pay tropical nations billions of dollars annually to save their forests.



The report, titled “Climate Change: Financing Global Forests,” offered that this money should come from private donors and global carbon markets.  The report states that by 2030, developing nations should also be asked to pay to help create “carbon neutral” forests, through setting targets to help slow deforestation, and hasten reforestation.

“Deforestation will continue as long as cutting down and burning trees is more economic than preserving them,” said Johan Eliasch, Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s special representative on deforestation, and author of the report.

The report estimates that funds from carbon markets alone would be able to cut deforestation rates down 75 percent by 2030.

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]]> http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/10/14/uk-says-rich-nations-should-pay-billions-every-year-for-rainforest/feed/ http://sustainablog.org/2008/10/08/building-bridges-a-bull-market-in-green-guilt-isnt-sustainable/ http://sustainablog.org/2008/10/08/building-bridges-a-bull-market-in-green-guilt-isnt-sustainable/#comments Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:07:52 +0000 Jeff McIntire-Strasburg http://sustainablog.org/2008/10/08/building-bridges-a-bull-market-in-green-guilt-isnt-sustainable/ The stock market is down, unemployment is up, and the political class is falling all over over itself trying to take action (or, at least create the appearance of taking action). Looking for some calm in this economic storm? Two words: carbon offsets.

That’s right: according to the Washington Post’s David A. Fahrenthold, there’s “a bull market in environmental guilt.” Fahrenthold’s tone, and those of several bloggers whom have linked to his article, suggests something nefarious is happening with the sale of offsets.

I don’t agree with that, but I didn’t sit down today to defend offsets from detractors.  I think there’s a much more interesting question raised in this article: the sustainability of a “green economy” that’s focused primarily on, well, environmentalists… or, at least those who share our larger set of values. Fahrenthold notes:

…people in this business are worried that the guilt boom is about to bust. Most of their customers — usually college-educated and making more than $50,000 a year — have not been hit hard by the weakening economy. Yet.

“People still come to the site, but where you used to get people signing up [for offsets] every day, now you’d be lucky to get a few people a week,” said Fred Weiss, a small-time offset seller based in Ann Arbor, Mich., who sends customers stickers that say, “Carbon Neutral Vehicle.” Apparently that isn’t as important now.

“Who cares about the environment? Am I going to have a house next week?” he imagined would-be customers saying.

As an environmentalist, it’s tempting to respond to Weiss’ rhetorical questions with something along the lines of “But you should care about the environment because…” — fill in the rest for yourself. More and more, I think that first impulse is probably the wrong one.  Rather than focusing on the first question, we should think hard about the second one… and worry if we can’t come up with an answer.

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]]> http://sustainablog.org/2008/10/08/building-bridges-a-bull-market-in-green-guilt-isnt-sustainable/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/10/08/cup-of-virtue-grounds-for-change-uses-carbon-offsets-to-become-first-carbon-free-coffee-roaster/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/10/08/cup-of-virtue-grounds-for-change-uses-carbon-offsets-to-become-first-carbon-free-coffee-roaster/#comments Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:00:55 +0000 Bryan Luukinen http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/10/08/cup-of-virtue-grounds-for-change-uses-carbon-offsets-to-become-first-carbon-free-coffee-roaster/ Searching for that truly virtuous cup of coffee? If you’ve looked into the impact of your morning cup of joe recently, chances are you know that most coffees are their greenest when they’re still on the plantation, or maybe the tree.

Roasting, shipping, marketing, bagging and processing all take a lot of energy, and most coffee in the world travels a fair distance before it ends up in our french presses. Coffee is an equatorial crop, and we don’t all live on the equator.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/10/08/cup-of-virtue-grounds-for-change-uses-carbon-offsets-to-become-first-carbon-free-coffee-roaster/feed/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/09/10/new-guide-ids-carbon-offset-programs-that-really-make-a-difference/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/09/10/new-guide-ids-carbon-offset-programs-that-really-make-a-difference/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:15:57 +0000 Shirley Siluk Gregory http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/09/10/new-guide-ids-carbon-offset-programs-that-really-make-a-difference/ Not all carbon offset programs are created equal, and many well-intentioned green types can feel cheated when they discover the program they’ve chosen doesn’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions as advertised. But help is now here in the form of a new, scientifically verified list of carbon offset providers.

Developed by the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Defense Fund, the Carbon Offset Project List is being billed as a “first-of-its-kind online resource that will help businesses and consumers identify and purchase carbon offsets that represent real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”

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]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/09/10/new-guide-ids-carbon-offset-programs-that-really-make-a-difference/feed/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/09/08/how-to-use-offsets-in-your-marketing/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/09/08/how-to-use-offsets-in-your-marketing/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:12:26 +0000 Jennifer Kaplan http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/09/08/how-to-use-offsets-in-your-marketing/ As consumers become more jaded about claims of greenness, companies that care about communicating their sustainability activities are looking for ways to credibly stand out. When done thoughtfully, the marketing of carbon neutralizing offset programs can be an excellent way to get your point across.

The travel industry has been a big adopter in the marketing of carbon neutrality. Expedia.com gives consumers the option to purchase TerraPass carbon offsets for the carbon emissions of flights. Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car also provide similar options for car rentals. But these program are no-brainers as the consumer bears the cost of the offsets.

The newest generation of offsets marketing includes the integration of offsets into the product itself — no opt-in necessary and at no additional cost to the consumer. This new wave of marketing often involves on-packaging communication of the company’s offset programs and there are a few standouts. Bloomsberry & Co. has partnered with TerraPass to create Climate Change Chocolate, an incredibly tasty chocolate bar that includes in the price of every bar 133 lbs of verified TerraPass carbon offsets (133 lbs being the average American’s daily carbon impact.)

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