Offsetters

Offsetters

Offsetters Climate Neutral Society provides the option for climate neutral travel and living.

Offsetters is a not-for-profit organization registered in Canada. Offsetters was established through the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia and the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at the University of Oxford. Offsetters is a socially driven team and their main goal has always been to provide cost effective and high quality greenhouse gas management solutions. Their platform is "Less Talk, More Action". Their social objective is to contribute the most to fight global warming and to help sustainable development in the local communities surrounding their projects. Around 80% of their funds received in 2006 were directly invested into projects.

History

Back in 2005 with an evaluation of offset provides two professors from Vancouver, Canada realized that many of the companies that offer offsets have huge overhead costs/profit margins and very little of the funds generated from offset purchases were used in the projects. They also found that many obtained offsets from questionable sources that may not provide real reductions in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. They founded Offsetters because they wanted more of what citizens invested to go directly into credible offset projects.

Operations

Climate change is one of the most serious challenges facing humanity. We now know that industrial activity over the past two centuries has already increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by about 50%. These gases make life possible on earth, but too much greenhouse gases trap extra energy in the atmosphere leading to a different climate, sea level rise, storms, draughts, and floods.

Each individual in Canada and the US personally emit around 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. If all emissions from [agriculture and industrial activities are included, the total emissions per capita is closer to 23 tonnes per year.

Offsetters provides a positive choice on climate change. They invest in projects that take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere or stop them from being emitted in the first place. All of the purchases for offsets are invested into carbon offset projects. By installing energy efficient heating systems on a large scale their projects offset the emissions from the client's activities, helping them to become climate neutral.

How much reduction is needed? In order to stabilize the earth's climate a reduction in global emissions by more than 70% is needed. The projects that are initiated and promoted by Offsetters reduce greenhouse gas of 70% or more, and are economically attractive in the long run because they will sustain themselves once started.

High Quality Carbon Offset Projects

Offsetters defines high quality carbon offset projects by 5 principles:

• Projects that reduce total greenhouse gas emissions in the world: Only supporting projects that lead to real reductions in total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
• Projects that meet or exceed standards in Canada: Projects that exceed environmental and social standards in Canada are highly credible. Some offset projects (e.g., pig farms in Latin America) would fail Canadian standards in animal care and water pollution prevention.
• Projects that are easily verified by a third party: Offsetters is primarily a voluntary program and their clients can feel confident that their money is well spent with measurable benefits.
• Projects that provide lasting environmental benefit: This means that energy efficiency technologies and renewable energy are favoured over tree planting. Greenhouse gas savings can be measured and created in energy efficiency and renewable projects.
• Projects that are socially beneficial: Projects that bring social benefits as well as environmental gains help make sure that there will be a social desire to sustain them in the long run.

WestJet

WestJet is a Canadian airline who gives the option to fly climate friendly at no cost to the customer. The customer can book any WestJet flight through the link at www.offsetters.ca and WestJet pays for the offsets of that flight at no cost for the customer.

Examples of flights, total carbon dioxide emissions and the cost to offset them:

Departure and Destination	Tonne CO2	Offset Cost (Cdn)
Vancouver to Toronto	0.73	$13.79
Vancouver to L.A.	0.39	$7.32
Montreal to Mexico City	1.03	$19.39
Edmonton to London	1.91	$35.93

Offsetters can also calculate the annual emissions from a home or business. For energy bills paid in BC, one can enter their payments in column B for each fuel. Then, multiply column A by column B. Add up the last column and this is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, GHG total.

Fuel Type	A: KG, CO2/$	B: $ Spent/Year	AxB: Total GHG
Gas	4.56
Electricity	1.26
Heating Oil	3.32
Gasoline	0.63
Total

References

Interview with Eclipse One Tonne Challenge Interview with Associated Press Interview with the Globe and Mail

Further Readings

Verification and Validation of Offsets David Suzuki Foundation on Carbon Neutrality

External Links

Offsetters