With climate change dominating headlines and people increasingly concerned about the impact of their individual activities, more and more consumers are turning to so-called carbon offsets to assuage their enviro-guilt.
But the burgeoning offset market still looks a little like the Wild West of yesteryear, and consumers are faced by a confusing mass of offset options vying for their money.
Simply put, a carbon offset represents the equivalent of a tonne of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — being removed from the atmosphere, for example by planting trees or by preventing CO2 from escaping into the air. Carbon offsets, or credits, were initially designed to help companies and governments reduce the tally of their greenhouse gas emissions; a manufacturer could shell out money to plant trees, for example, rather than invest in smokestack scrubbers.
Now, consumers are also buying offsets — either because they want to reduce their personal "carbon footprint" or because buying certain credits can force businesses to reduce their emissions further. In the past two years, dozens of companies have sprung up to sell offsets. In theory, if you create a tonne of carbon dioxide by flying, driving, barbecuing or doing almost anything else, you can buy an offset and become "carbon neutral" — that is, not contribute to global warming.
But it's an unregulated industry. Some offset projects aren't particularly effective, or harm the people and economies where they take place. As a result, not every offset is created equal. So, what's a simple consumer to do?
Before, the only option was to plow through hundreds of pages of documents and become a carbon-offset expert yourself. But now, there's a new sheriff in town. Actually, there are a few policing agents at work, in the shape of standards agencies that certify legitimate credits. It's an important job, considering that spending on carbon offsets topped $100-million worldwide in 2006, before the real rush began.
Lee Hunter, a technical editor in Ottawa, was one consumer who recently contributed to the growth of the offset market. He bought offsets from PlanetAir, a Canadian not-for-profit company that began selling them to consumers last August. It was set up by the Unisfera International Centre, a not-for-profit sustainable development consulting company based in Montreal.
Mr. Hunter will be going to an Edmonton conference in June and knew that air travel creates a lot of greenhouse gases, so he weighed his options. "I wasn't really aware of any alternatives," he says. "Not going [to the conference] would be the most environmental thing to do, but would surely restrict my professional development options."
So he turned to carbon offsets — and found a complicated market filled with different options, each with a website making an argument in its favour. A colleague suggested PlanetAir; after reading about the company, Mr. Hunter spent about $45 to offset the 1.25 tonnes of greenhouse gases for which his plane seat would be responsible.
PlanetAir currently sells offsets for projects that, for example, replace diesel generators with wind turbines in Madagascar, or burn sewer gases to generate electricity in South Africa.
From a consumer perspective, buying an offset can feel risky. When you buy a book or a toaster, you have something physical and tangible at the end of the process. With offsets, you're effectively paying someone to not produce a certain amount of greenhouse gas.
Mr. Hunter says he was reassured when he read that PlanetAir buys credits certified by Gold Standard, based in Basel, Switzerland. It is one of the new not-for-profit groups certifying carbon offsets, and is "the strongest in the world," says Paul Lingl, a climate change campaigner with the David Suzuki Foundation.
