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Carbon off-setting

Your destination may well be a highly sustainable eco-holiday but you still have to get there. For every 2000 miles you travel on a plane, you are individually contributing to the production of one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, about the same amount as running a household for 60 days or leaving your computer on for 10,600 hours. So rather than simply not flying, an increasing number of people are taking to carbon off-setting.

This is where you pay an organisation to counter-act your personal greenhouse gas contribution by planting enough trees to mop up the same amount of carbon dioxide. But while this may sound like the perfect way to assuage one’s carbon guilt it is not without its pitfalls.

Voluntary (ie non-commercial or governmental) off-setting is unregulated which means that there is a noticeable lack of standards. Many websites offer carbon calculators to work out how much carbon your trip will produce. But comparing a handful of these can produce hugely differing results, with some telling you your carbon footprint is a factor of 10 times higher than others for the same flight. The reason for this is that calculating the greenhouse emissions of a flight is hugely complicated with some taking into account not just carbon dioxide but also ozone-producing nitrogen oxides and even the production of water vapour, which can have a greenhouse effect by contributing to the production of contrails.

Then there is price. This can also vary dramatically between off-setting companies, making things even more confusing for someone trying to make a difference. Does paying more guarantee a greater environmental impact or merely reflect a company’s readiness to turn a profit? And what of the environmental impact. Even if a company has planted enough trees to counteract your carbon footprint, just how long will it take to do the job? The trees may be capable of soaking up your quota of emissions but it will take decades to do so. And all it takes is a forest fire or disease to bring a premature death to that gesture.

An alternative is to buy carbon credits from a company that invests in renewable energy or energy efficient products. This has the added benefit of not just soaking up pollution but actually reducing the amount being produced. The catch here is that it is important to show that it is being used to reduce emissions. For example, installing solar panels in an African village is all very well but if it has no impact on the amount of wood being burned there then you are not offsetting anything.

Undoubtedly, off-setting is a laudable thing to do but it really pays to do it right. So read the small print. To help you with this task, a consortium of environmental groups has now set up a Gold Standard for off-setting (http://www.cdmgoldstandard.org/).