For those who want to see the planet but fret about the harmful environmental effects of driving and flying, a growing list of companies are offering a chance to "offset" the journey.
They're called carbon offset programs, and they aim to reduce the threat of global warming that scientists say are caused by greenhouse gases emitted when burning fossil fuels. Using the offset programs, most available online, travelers can calculate how much carbon dioxide their trip produces and pay to generate an equal share of renewable energy such as wind or solar power.
There are dozens of the companies, some for profit and some nonprofit that have proliferated mainly during the past two years to offer the service. They provide a host of options and cost anywhere from $5.50 to over $18 to offset one ton of carbon - about equal to a cross-country flight.
There are skeptics of such programs and they are not just those who question the impact of global warming. The nascent industry is unregulated and there is not yet one accepted set of standards for these businesses, making it difficult for consumers to confirm whether all the companies are doing what they claim.
Some businesses that sell the service do not disclose how much money they keep in administrative costs or how they are calculating pollution. Some environmental groups even say the offsets do little to encourage people to conserve energy.
Global warming has generated more discussion of late, with the success of Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and a recent report from a United Nations panel that says rising temperatures are causing more extreme weather and rising sea levels.
That report said some coastal areas like Baltimore's Harborplace could potentially be underwater at high tide by 2100.
The attention has helped the offset programs gain enough mainstream interest that major travel sites Travelocity and Expedia both began offering the products to their airline customers.
Expedia partnered in August with TerraPass, which funds several programs. It said its customers have paid to offset almost 27 million pounds of carbon, equal to flying from Baltimore to Los Angeles about 10,000 times. Travelocity teamed with the nonprofit Conservation Fund, which plants trees, and its customers offset about 10.4 million pounds in the last four months of the year.
The niche market for these services may face a hurdle in growing larger since some travelers may not be willing to add more to the price of a plane ticket, for example. Consumers already pay extra for taxes, airport facility fees and post-2001 security costs. But those selling offsets insist that customers don't view these services as a tax but as a separate purchase to benefit the environment.
Jeff Siegel, a Baltimore publisher, came across a TerraPass and decided it was an easy way to do his part. He paid $10 to offset emissions from a Caribbean trip he plans in April.
"TerraPass simply gives eco-minded people another option," Siegel said. "For example, there are certain hybrids on the market that can drastically reduce our fuel consumption. But they aren't cheap. Not yet, anyway. And if you can't afford a new hybrid, but you want to try to do something to offset your car's emissions, this is an excellent way to do it."
TerraPass was founded in 2004 as a class project for an environmentally conscious professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. It's now a for-profit company, and mostly within the past year has signed up more than 2,400 members and reduced 36 million pounds of carbon - the equivalent of taking almost 6,000 cars off the road - by funding nine renewable energy projects.
Biomass programs
It funds wind farms. It buys and retires credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange, a voluntary system where companies reduce their emissions and sell the credits to companies that don't. And it funds biomass programs that capture methane from cow manure and burn it. That puts a renewable energy source into use and keeps methane, itself a greenhouse gas, from entering the atmosphere, the company said.
"We wanted to make it so many people could participate," said Tom Arnold, chief environmental officer for TerraPass, which is based in San Francisco. "By aggregating a large number of individuals together, you can get a year's worth of carbon reduction for your car for about $50. A cross-country flight is about $10."
TerraPass may become one of the better-known programs because it hands out stickers and luggage tags to its customers. But there are many offset options of varying quality, according to a review in January of 13 programs done by the Tufts Climate Initiative, which is Tufts University's center for studying climate change.
It recommended only four outright. Three had no means to calculate emissions to be offset and were not recommended. Six were recommended with reservations, including TerraPass, which the Tufts center said may underestimate emissions from air travel and that it would not disclose the percentage of sales going to energy projects.
TerraPass countered that an independent third party verifies all of its programs, so customers know they are getting what they pay for.
Tufts didn't study the Conservation Fund, but the report said tree planting in general is an issue because environmental conditions vary too much to accurately gauge how much carbon they offset. Travelocity said the fund gets top ratings from charity groups. And besides carbon reduction, trees provide wildlife habitat.
Jet fuel tax
The Tufts report concluded that the programs in general were useful in providing funds to "kick start" development of low-carbon technologies. But it said it's not possible to offset all travel-related emissions through voluntary programs. It said the answer to global warming is a federal cap on emissions and a worldwide tax on jet fuel. That's something the airlines do not endorse. U.S. carriers and the Bush administration are fighting European efforts to impose a system to slow aviation emissions, considered a small but growing contributor of greenhouse gases.
"There is much validity to the argument that offsetting simply helps us assuage our guilt, while we continue to fail to change our lifestyles toward patterns that are more truly sustainable," the report said. "Avoiding having to fly to far-away places is still the most effective way to reduce one's personal air travel emissions."
But that is not realistic, says Sustainable Travel International, a nonprofit organization based in Boulder, Colo., that promotes eco-tourism. The group offers its own carbon reduction program called MyClimate. It won a recommendation in the Tufts report for expensive but more accurate offset values, divulging the portion of sales spent on projects - 80 percent - and investing in projects with clear benefits.
Brian T. Mullis, a spokesman for Sustainable Travel International, said there is benefit from the rise of these programs, even if they can't offset all the carbon emitted.
"People have to travel, fly, drive, use electricity," he said. "These programs may help people invest in credible projects, but they also help educate people and encourage them to reduce what they use."
Mullis said consumers buying offsets ought to ensure that an outside party reviews the projects they're funding.
Stamps of approval
Among the most commonly accepted stamps of approval are Green-e and Gold Standard. The Green-e program is administered by the San Francisco group Center for Resource Solutions, a nonprofit promoting renewable energy use. The group is working with others to produce a universal set of standards for all offsets sold to consumers.
Lars Kvale, an analyst for the center, said that until there are across-the-board standards, that it might not be possible for consumers to figure out if the offsets they were buying actually help reduce greenhouse gases.
A standard could be completed as early as spring, and Kvale hopes companies will adhere to them. For now, it verifies programs such as TerraPass on a case-by-case basis.
"There's going to be criticism because there are still issues to work out," Kvale said. "As long as we can keep companies from misleading consumers, the industry has great potential. The bottom line is reducing greenhouse gases."
Aaron B. Stephan, a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University, had been keeping his eyes peeled for an offset program after watching the Al Gore movie and said a third-party review was important to him. He and his wife spent $70 on a TerraPass for a year's offset for their car, a hybrid Toyota Prius, and a trip to a friend's wedding in Wyoming. He doesn't mind that TerraPass makes money, so long as he gets what he paid for.
"Twenty years from now, I don't want to be telling our kids how all the evidence was staring us in the face, but we decided that any contribution we could do would be insignificant anyway," Stephan said. "I understand we won't single-handedly change how America thinks about energy, but I do feel like we are part of the movement."
meredith.cohn@baltsun.com
Selling offsets
Environmentalists suggest these tips in choosing a carbon offset program:
Look on a company's Web site to see which projects they have chosen to fund and decide which specific renewable energy or energy-efficiency projects you want to support.
Look for a third-party verification of projects before buying a carbon offset. Two of the accepted stamps of approval include Green-e and Gold Standard.
There are several dozen carbon offset programs available to travelers, including:
MyClimate: A Swiss nonprofit company that sells offsets through Sustainable Travel International, which supports eco-travel. The money goes to renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects in developing countries such as Eritrea, where solar panels are being installed on schools, hospitals and homes. Offsetting a round-trip flight from Baltimore to Los Angeles would cost $21.65.
TerraPass: A for-profit company based in San Francisco sold through the fare-finder Expedia. It supports renewable energy projects such as wind farms and methane fuel production from cow manure. It also buys and retires carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange, a voluntary system where companies conserve energy or sell credits to those that don't. The Baltimore-Los Angeles trip's offset would cost $9.95.
Conservation Fund: A nonprofit company based in Arlington, Va., whose offsets are offered through Go Zero by fare-finder Travelocity. It funds habitat preservation by planting trees, which absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. There are projects in all regions of the country. The Baltimore-Los Angeles flight offset would cost $9.72.
[Meredith Cohn]