Carbon Offsetting When Jetsetting...

How green is your footprint?

Now I thought I'd have a look at Carbon Offsetting. Not that we can afford it. I could easily find a better home for my cash right now, but I just wanted to see how much carbon our flight would use. 

In a perfect world I would spend my money on all things eco and green, whilst saving the world from climate change, SUV's and plastic bags. Unfortunately I have some packing to do and after counting up the coppers, we don't even have enough to pay for the flights. So instead of feeling guilty about flying to the place I will call home (again) soon, I am going to educate myself further in the things that I can do now that are not quite so dramatical as flying over the oceans in my underpants waving my credit card.

Our trip details are:

London, United Kingdom ↔ Bombay, India
Round trip (8,956 miles)
Economy Class 

3 passengers
Calculated CO2 emissions:



Ben & Jerry's can offset our carbon to help developers of renewable energy continue to promote and develop technology to displace polluting fossil fuels... 

CO2 Emissions: 10.949 short tonnes (9.82 tonnes) for $150. 

Terrapass funds three different project types: clean energy produced by wind power; farm power which makes good use of animal wastes; and landfill gas capture, which reduces the impact of our own wastes.

CO2 Emissions: 7,206 lbs (3.2 tonnes) for a mere $47.50 

(now I know this looks like I've only got the result for 1 passenger, but i've rechecked and 1 passenger is 2,402 lbs CO2)

Now if you have to go somewhere then sometimes it's better to fly than to catch a train...

Zerofootprint attempt to keep their sources of credits as diversified as possible, and have an ongoing program of developing innovative and high quality offset projects.

CO2 Emissions: 12.77 tonnes for $208

So you are looking at roughly £15 per tonne... not a bad price for helping the world I guess.

(I used this site to do the conversions of short tons to long tonnes to pounds)

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