WWF-Australia - for a living planet

Reduce, Renew, Offset

As a Futuremaker you've heard a lot of fuss about global warming, and you've decided to do something about it.

You know that we need to use less power - so you've changed your light bulbs to compact fluorescent globes and taken all your appliances off standby. You take public transport or walk to work when you can, and you only fly when you really need to.

You know that we need to move to using renewable energy for electricity generation, so you've switched to Green Power.

But what do you do about the emissions of the essential flight for your next business trip? Is there some way you can reduce your car's emissions until you can upgrade to a new hybrid?

Luckily there is an option for reducing your CO2 emissions to effectively zero. It's called "offsetting", or "carbon offsets".

What is "offsetting"?

The idea behind offsetting is fairly straightforward. Let's have a look at a common case - flying - to see how offsetting works.

Taking a flight causes a large amount of carbon dioxide to enter the atmosphere.

+ 1.95 tonnes

A return flight from Sydney to Perth results in the equivilent of 1.95 tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere (that's nearly half of the emissions of the average car over a whole year!).

Paying money to become part of an offsets program results in less carbon dioxide.

- 1.95 tonnes

The small fee you pay to an offsets program goes towards projects, like wind or solar power, that reduce CO2 by the same amount as your flight creates, effectively cancelling out or "offsetting" your emissions.

The result is your emissions being cancelled out.

= 0 tonnes

This means that you can continue to fly, confident in the knowledge that you have effectively reduced your total emissions to zero.

Is it that easy?

Yes. It's that easy.

Offsetting is a great way to effectively reduce your emissions at times where you can't reduce your emissions through energy efficiency, or switching to an alternative technology (like hybrid or high-efficiency diesel cars).

Although it might seem convenient to simply offset all of our emissions and not make other small life changes, it's important that we all take steps first to reduce our energy use (through efficiency measures) and switch to cleaner sources of energy (like Green Power and hybrid or high-efficiency diesel cars).

But on those occasions where you can't reduce your emissions for some reason, offsetting is a great way to take an extra step towards a sustainable future.

Where to start

A growing number of offset programs are starting up around the world. WWF-Australia uses Climate Friendly to offset the emissions of staff flights and some events. They have a great set of calculators for working out the emissions for air and car travel as well as letting you know how much it would cost to offset your emissions.

If you decide to offset using Climate Friendly, be sure to mention that you heard about them from WWF and Climate Friendly will donate 5% of your offset fee to support our work.

Are all offset programs created equal?

Some offset providers promote the planting of trees as a method of offsetting your emissions. The theory goes that a growing tree will absorb CO2, therefore reducing the amount in the atmosphere. Though in principle this is a good idea, some offsets programs have the double-advantage of investing in important new technologies which deliver clean energy, thereby avoiding greenhouse gas emissions at the source - something that tree-planting programs can't do.

To make the most of your investment, we recommend programs that comply with the CDM Gold Standard for carbon credits. Be sure to ask your offsets provider where your money goes - specifically if the projects they invest in are accredited to this standard. That way you can be sure that the fees you pay are being used to create a real reduction in carbon emissions.

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