Carbon Offsetting can be a controversial issue, viewed by some as a means to lighten their carbon load on the planet and by others as an excuse to throw money at a problem rather than make any effective or sometimes challenging changes.

My personal view of carbon offsetting is that it should be used to ‘mop up’ after you’ve already adjusted the way you do things. As we all know, there are many ways to lower our C02, in some cases this can be as straightforward as swapping a lightbulb or as in-depth as re-thinking the way we live. I feel that carbon offsetting can be used once you have decreased your individual carbon footprint as much as you can but there are still a few things that you’re not able to change immediately or practically.

When we were writing our environmental policy and action plan here at Make Hay I decided that I would offset the carbon emmissions caused by our business travel. Fortunately this is minimal because our line of work allows us to communicate via e-mail and telephone most of the time but, on occassion, we need to meet clients face to face. Our clients are based all over the country, some in the city and some in the country so whether by bus, train or car for meetings we we need to use transport.

Once I began to investigate the carbon offestting schemes available I realised how varied they were in terms of what you actually pay for, how they work and how much they cost.

Some organisations ask for contributions of £1000, others sell set packages for as little at £30. My main dilemma was should I pay to support a tree planting scheme here in the UK or should my money go towards communities in developing countries? If we’re speaking purely about the pollution which comes straight from the exhaust of a vehicle I’m using then that will initially affect the environment right here. However, developing countries are and will suffer the devastation of human induced climate changed caused by people here in the UK (and other countries) but do not necessarily have the same support and infrastucture to protect themselves or recover.

I have to say that I was impressed by the wide variety of carbon offsetting projects. Of course it has to be about so much more than planting a certain number of trees and many carbon offset companies have addressed that, investing in energy saving schemes and renewable energy sources.

For our first year of carbon offsetting I chose a company which covers all three areas - reforestation (on various continents), energy efficiency and renewables. However, next year I may use a different one, allowing me to support more of the innovative ways being employed to reduce C02.

I wanted to share my experince here on GGG because I’m genuinely interested to hear what you think of carbon offsetting.

Do you think its an effective way to tackle climate change?

Would you use it?

If, so what kind?

Put ‘Carbon Offsetting’ into Google and see how many options there are.

I’d love to hear your views in the comments below or contact me here at GGG.