How far do you look? What do you calculate?

To Calculate a personal carbon footprint, you need to know what emissions to include and what to exclude. If you use one of the online footprint calculators that ask for miles traveled, distances, electricity usage, gas usage, kilowatt hours, type of automobile, you will have a good sense of your personal footprint. But obviously these are the easy answers- ones that can be found by looking at a bill or receipt. What about the indirect sources of Carbon dioxide that are unique to your lifestyle?

Your lifestyle has an impact on the amount of greenhouse gas you produce. For instance, the amount of greenhouse gas that is released as a result of food production for a meat diet is far more than that for a vegan or vegetarian diet, but does that mean this type of factor should be added to a carbon footprint calculation? Absolutely.

Someday, it will be possible to purchase goods and services that have carbon neutral built in. The socially responsible company, in my ideal, would also account for the amount of GHG that would come from disposing of the good, thinking of their product throughout the entire supply chain process and life cycle.

Until the day that you can purchase products that have offsets built in, wouldn’t it just be easier to offset my carbon foot print in excess knowing that there are some things beyond my knowledge, control or calculation abilities?

Many Companies promise to offset your carbon dioxide emissions by funding new renewable energy projects, but why not just cut a larger check to the power company instead? We should all support renewable energy, but don’t confuse a Renewable Energy Credit (REC) with a carbon offset.

The problem with purchasing RECs to neutralize your carbon footprint is that there is not a legal requirement that will guarantee carbon dioxide emissions are neutralized. Instead support policy that promotes renewable energy development and energy independence. This will lead to new technologies and a sustainable future.

A renewable energy credit (REC), also called a “green tag,” represents the environmental attributes of one kilowatt hour of electricity. This means that if a windmill producing renewable energy and a coal fired power plant producing non-renewable energy are connected to the same electrical grid where they sell power, the windmill can sell renewable energy credits to subsidize its higher production costs compared to the cheap energy from the coal plant.

Companies like NativeEnergy, Terrapass and The Bonneville Foundation that sell RECs to consumers make the assumption that carbon dioxide will be offset by reducing the power load on the dirt coal plant–essentially less fossil fuel will be burned because the windmills have taken over the production of power. This offset cannot be calculated directly or verified. At best, branding programs like “green-e” can stipulate guidelines for calculating accounting.

A true carbon offset is different than a REC because it is exchanged within a cap-and-trade market that requires dirty power producers and industries to reduce their environmental footprint. In this example, our coal power plant needs to purchase pollution rights before producing power. By purchasing credits from a cap and trade market, you deny a polluter access to additional pollution rights and require them to cleanup.

Please post comments if you see something that is missing

Additional: one of the qualities of an offset is that it is additional to “business as usual.”

Allowance: In a cap and trade system, an allowance is a legal right to pollute that is issued by a government agency. Each allowance credit permits the owner to pollute an allotted amount, unless the owner chooses to retire the allowance or sell it.

Cap and Trade: This is an artificial marketplace designed to reduce pollution by paying people who reduce pollution with money from polluters.

CFI: “Carbon Financial Instrument,” this is the trademarked name for a carbon offset credit on the Chicago Climate Exchange

Carbon Footprint: The amount of greenhouse gas emitted each year through direct (such as driving) and indirect (such as electrical purchases) sources.

Carbon Offsets: Represents the legal rights to greenhouse gas pollution that can be purchased or sold. Do not confuse with renewable energy credits (REC) which do not represent any legal requirement to reduce greenhouse gas.

CER: “Certified Emissions Reduction.” This is the name for a carbon offset credit that is registered with the CDM Board of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and traded for compliance with the Kyoto Protocols. To be granted CER credits, a carbon offset project must be first built, then verified and approved by various bureaucracies and UN committees. The equivalent in the United States is a Chicago Climate Exchange CFI.

CO2e: CO2e is carbon dioxide equivalence, the basic unit of greenhouse gas calculated in terms of carbon dioxide because each greenhouse gas has a different potency. Also refered to as “GWP,” or Global Warming Potential.

ETS “Emissions Trading Scheme.” The EU ETS is the name given to the European Union cap and trade system that requires each country to achieve a different level of greenhouse gas reduction.

Green House Gas: There are six common greenhouse gasses- carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). Each has a different CO2 equivalence.

Kyoto Protocol: United Nations treaty that establishes a global cap and trade system for reducing green house gas.

Offsets: The reduction of overall air pollution when one party pays another party to reduce pollution on their behalf.

Renewable Energy: Energy that does not run out, such as wind, solar, hydro, bio-gas, tidal or geothermal.

REC: A “Renewable Energy Credit” is a unit of electricity measured in kilowatt hours that has been generated from a renewable source
Carbon Offset

RPS: “Renewable Portfolio Standard” is a legal requirement that exists in many states to promote renewable energy investment by mandating a percentage of energy that must come from renewable sources. A renewable portfolio standard creates a marketplace for renwable energy credits to be traded.

VER “Verified Emissions Reduction,” this is the name for a carbon offset credit that has not been through the expensive process of registration on an exchange, yet has been verified by an independent third party.

Carbon Neutral printing and postage sends a green message and is inexpensive. Sending packages, marketing material, and letters through the mail is an indirect source of greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon footprint of your direct marketing campaign, order fulfillment, or daily love letters can be calculated and offset easily. Here is how to begin:

1. Calculate the weight of all the items you send
2. To find the emissions (in lbs) from postage, multiply the total weight by .01
3. To find the emissions (in lbs) from printed paper, multiply the total weight by 1.5
4. Add the totals from #3 and #4-this is the approximate carbon footprint.

The cost of offsetting marketing materials, Catalogs and and other items sent through the mail is small. At Standard Carbon, we make things extra simple and build in some margin for error by offsetting postage at the rate of 1lb/Co2 for every piece up to 12 ounces. Large shipments and print jobs can be calculated and offset with a couple minutes calculations. The bottom line-it is easier than you think to be Carbon Neutral!

Reasoning: The US Postal Service uses approximately 121 million gallons of fossil fuel every year to deliver about 25.9 billion pounds of mail. This is about .01lbs of CO2 for every lb of mail that is sent. The paper that is used in printed material is composed of cellulose which is about 40% carbon by weight. When this cellulose decomposes, the carbon becomes C02 gas that weighs 3.67 times more (add O2). Thus, the Carbon footprint from a piece of paper is about 1.5 times its actual weight.