For many of us, the recent string of days that began with a turkey-stuffing feast and ended with an Internet shopping frenzy felt like a blackout. (When the hell did November switch to December?) If you count yourself in that crowd, then here’s your tonic: there’s currently a way that you can offset your entire carbon footprint for a year. No, that declaration doesn’t have quite as much pull as SAVE $1,000 ON AN OLED TV, but it’s more significant, and it’s guilt-free (if you’re feeling some self-loathing after an uninhibited binge on consumerism).
Seventy-two dollars. That’s all it costs to offset one year’s worth of commuting, eating, traveling and buying things, according to a new carbon offset certification called Climate Neutral. That number is based on another: 24, which is the average amount in tonnes of annual CO2 emissions created by the average individual.
The money purchases carbon credits, which, to put it simply, support carbon-reducing activities like reforestation and solar energy installation. Climate Neutral aims to create a system through which companies can measure their footprint, reduce it through action and offset the rest with credits to achieve carbon neutrality. Those companies can then implement a label — like the USDA Organic graphics you see on food — so that the rest of us will know if, say, a pair of sunglasses we have our eyes on is certified neutral.
When it comes to personal offsetting, Climate Neutral will purchase carbon credits on your behalf and will email you details about the specific projects they end up supporting once its inaugural Kickstarter funding campaign wraps.
You can offset your entire footprint with a donation of $100 — $72 for carbon credits, $19.50 in support of Climate Neutral, $8.50 for Kickstarter and credit card fees — or you can pledge a custom amount.
