Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia
As awareness of carbon emissions and climate change issues has grown among the general business community as well as the public, many are looking at ways to offset the impacts of air travel. However, airlines have not in the main stepped up to the mark in providing this service, despite the growing interest. Consequently, many businesses are partnering with third party organizations to address the impacts of business travel.
- Many groups like Carbonfund.org, Climate Care , the Climate Trust and the Carbon Neutral Company have moved to fill in the gap left by the airlines and offer a variety of offset products and tools for businesses and individuals.
- Air charter companies increasingly are pulling ahead of the big airlines in this area. For example, Air Partner working with the Carbon Neutral Company now offers the option, through its Jet Card program, of flying carbon neutral for only a 2% increase in price to pay for offsetting.
- In the U.S., the Association of Corporate Travel Executives partnered with both the Carbon Neutral Company and Climate Trust to implement offsetting for business travel.
- Working with Carbon Fund, the Ovation Travel Group has implemented assessment and offsetting for business travel.
- Financial institutions such as HSBC have begun offset pilot programs and assesses and reports the carbon impacts of business travel in their CSR reports.
The opportunities for offsetting air travel are not limited to business. Indeed many of the same organizations that work with corporate and business clients have offsetting products designed for the individual consumer. Most offer easy-to-use carbon calculators and other tools to assist individuals in their offset decisions, as well as a number of different offsetting projects too chose from. Of course, there are things that any individual or business interested in offsetting air travel should keep in mind.
- Not all offset groups offer air travel offsetting.
- Offset groups utilize varying levels of standards to evaluate the offset projects they invest in, as well as using different techniques to determine the projects’ impact and quality.
- The various groups offering offsetting spend different amounts on offsetting. For example, CarbonNeutral spends 15-30% of its sales on offset projects, compared to say Carbonfund or CarbonCounter which both spend 90% or more on offset projects.
- For those on a budget it is also important to consider that depending on which group you chose to purchase an offset from, it can cost as little as $5 USD/tonne of CO2 offset or as much as $18 USD/tonne of CO2 offset.
Airlines which provide options for offsetting carbon emissions include:
- British Airways - has joined forces with Climate Care to enable customers to offset the CO2 emissions created during their flight.
- At the end of 2006, Silverjet, a business class airline, was the first airline to commit to being carbon-neutral travel on all its flights. It is offering customers carbon credits, a type of voucher that is used to sponsor clean-energy research and projects. Silverjet touts the credits as a means to counterbalance carbon emissions produced through travel.
- SAS is planning to provide an emissions calculator on its website www.sascargo.com
Useful resources of information
Like any investment, it is critical to look at the options, do the proper research and carefully scrutinize the details before committing to any offsetting plan. A valuable resource in this area is “Voluntary Offsets For Air-Travel Carbon Emissions: Evaluations and Recommendations of Thirteen Offset Companies”
produced by the Tufts Climate Initiative which can be found at
http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/pdf/TCI_Carbon_Offsets_Paper_Jan19.pdfA useful guide to assessing carbon offset opportunities
http://www.positiveoutcomes.com.au/page.asp?partid=378Air Partner’s jetcard offset site
http://www.thejetcard.co.uk/www/carbonneutral.phpThe Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) official website
http://www.ACTE.orgCarbon Fund’s page about their offsetting partnership with Ovation
http://carbonfund.org/site/more/media/283HSBC’s environment and carbon policy site, this has some good links to info about HSBC’s various offset and Carbon neutrality efforts
http://www.hsbc.com/hsbc/csr/environment/hsbc-and-climate-change/carbon-neutralityFear of Flying to Europe, Finance Asia.com
http://www.financeasia.com/article.aspx?CIaNID=71200&eid=11&edate=20080303Useful discussion of the need for a global approach to emissions management in the airline industry and also the need to offset projected growth in the airline industry (16,000 new aircraft by 2020) with a mix of better technology, improved flight route management and carbon trading and off-setting.
Offsetting groups that offer air travel offsets:
Atmosfair
http://www.atmosfair.de/index.php?id=9&L=3Climate Friendly
http://www.climatefriendly.comMyClimate
http://www.myclimate.org/index.php?lang=enNativeEnergy
http://www.nativeenergy.comCarbonCounter
http://www.carboncounter.org/index.phpCarbonFund
http://www.carbonfund.orgCarbonNeutral
http://www.carbonneutral.comClimate Care
http://www.climatecare.orgOffsetters
http://www.offsetters.caTerraPass
http://www.terrapass.com
