Do you ever wonder if there’s a way you can find out what your personal impact is on the environment? Did you know that you can mitigate your impact by offsetting your carbon footprint?
If you’d like to find out how every facet of your life (car, home, trips) affect the environment, we’d like to share with you a few websites which can help you map your personal carbon footprint.
Delta offers our customers the option to offset the carbon emissions of their flight by donating money to The Conservation Fund. The Fund is a leading environmental nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting land and water resources. Customers who purchase a ticket at delta.com can choose to contribute $5.50 for domestic roundtrip flights and $11 for international roundtrip flights to be used by The Conservation Fund to plant trees throughout the U.S. and abroad. You can access their Go Zero® Carbon Calculator here to estimate your emissions.
A company called Native Energy is the exclusive carbon offset provider for the book and movie An Inconvenient Truth. You can visit their website to calculate your carbon footprint based on the type of car you drive and how much heat and electricity your home uses. You can also choose where your offset money goes: either to wind energy, methane capture, or a mixture of both. Their website also has a feature through which you can calculate your footprint from traveling, either by driving, flying, or riding the train/bus.
If you’d like an even more accurate footprint, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also has a calculator on their website which takes about 10-15 minutes to fill out, and it goes into in-depth details about your power bills and transportation. It also adjusts your footprint based on other factors such as whether you recycle certain products.
If anyone else knows of a good carbon offsetting tool or would like to suggest something about Delta’s offsetting program, then please respond to this blog!
Kelly Stiegel
Environmental Health Co-op
October 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Hi Kelly,
Your readers might also be interested in the website http://www.enviro.aero, which has been established by the aviation industry to explain some of the impacts that aviation has on the environment, and our progress in reducing emissions and looking forward to a greener future for our industry. We also have a blog: http://www.enviro.aero/blog, which will highlight some of the innovations underway across the industry.
Haldane Dodd
Air Transport Action Group, Geneva
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 am
Why does the carbon offset so seldom show up as an option for purchase? I purchase flights on Delta.com nearly every week, and I’ve only had this option twice — and only once since the original, slow trip options were re-vamped. And – why can’t I purchase a carbon offset when booking a ticket with an agent on the phone? They don’t even know that it exists.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Hi Kelly,
Introduce on-board carbon offsets for flights , where flight stewards offer offsets with Delta’s drinks and snacks to passengers. In one fell swoop, you will bring buying offsets into the open and made it a public act.