Saturday, January 23, 2010

Why Purchase Carbon Offset And How To Go About It

By Jonathan Bennett

As people are becoming aware of the devastating effects of global warming on the planet, instruments like carbon offset and carbon credits are gaining wide acceptance throughout the world as effective tools for environment preservation.

If you want to offset the adverse impact of your actions on nature, then you can purchase an amount of carbon offset, which is equivalent to your carbon footprint. Purchasing a carbon offset implies that the amount you invest will be poured into ventures such as wind farms that produce clean energy and lower emissions.

Before going for carbon offset, you have to figure out how your actions and lifestyle are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. When people drive their cars, fly in airplanes, use home appliances like heaters or air conditioners, they are causing carbon emissions.

Once you have listed out all these activities, you should think of which of those you can reduce or completely get rid of. Doing this would enable you to greatly lessen your role in degrading the planet. For example, you can reduce emissions by driving less often, making use of fluorescent lights, and fitting better insulation to reduce energy consumption on heating or cooling.

After you have considered all the areas where you can act successfully towards lowering emissions, you should calculate the impact of your remaining activities on the environment, i.e., calculate your remaining carbon footprint. Most actions have their own unique method of emission calculation, but you can get many good calculators online that will help you in this regard.

Carbon offset providers counterbalance carbon emission from your actions by reducing emissions in any region of the world through your offset purchase. You can put your money in one of the environmental projects provided by the offset providers, and each project has its own method of emission control. But you should be careful before investing in a project. You must only put your money in recognised and transparent projects to avoid the possibility of the funds being misused. Many certifying bureaus conduct rigorous tests on authenticity and effectiveness to certify projects, and it is always a good idea to put money in an approved and authentic project.

Finally, you must equip yourself with adequate knowledge on the topic. Through research, you will come to know the genuine offset providers and the types of schemes that are suitable for investment, and you can also closely track how the scheme you have put your money in is performing.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment