BY MISTY MILIOTO
According to The Nature Conservancy, the typical carbon footprint— or the amount of greenhouse gasses that an activity, product, company, or country adds to the atmosphere — for a person in the United States is 16 tons — one of the highest rates in the world.
To put that number into perspective, nationally, the average carbon footprint per person is closer to four tons. According to the nonprofit organization, the typical global carbon footprint must decrease to less than two tons by 2050 in order to have the best chance of avoiding a 2oC rise in global temperatures.
Another effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is to purchase carbon offsets, in addition to taking small actions like avoiding eating meat or washing dishes in the dryer. Enter Houston-based Terrapass, a company formed in 2004 by Dr. Karl Ulrich, a professor at The Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania, and a group of his students.
” Terrapass was formed in the class, Problem Solving, Design and System Improvement, a second-quarter class in Wharton’s MBA program”, says Sam Telleen, president of Terrapass. ” By the end of the class, Terrapass had acquired a few hundred customers, and 41 students elected to retain equity and continue working on the business”.
The company at the time allowed people to reduce their driving carbon emissions. Telleen says that the initial Terrapass website would ask users to enter their car’s make, model, year, and annual mileage to calculate their annual carbon emissions from driving. ” Then customers ]had ] an option to offset those emissions by purchasing carbon credits”.
Within its second year, Terrapass registered more than 2, 400 members and reduced 36 million pounds of carbon dioxide. Finally, in 2007, Terrapass expanded its offerings to include carbon offsets for people in a range of crucial fields, including home energy consumption and air travel. The business sector was likewise served by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which now offers a hire car offset program.
The climate company offers carbon offsets today through the Terrapass Global Portfolio of projects. The portfolio is based on the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Offsetting, which includes engineered projects with strong permanence and quantification combined with nature-based projects that promote additional benefits, such as protecting important species and ecosystems, carbon reductions that stop new carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere and speed up the transition to a low-carbon society, and carbon removals that remove carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.
Sustainability reporting organizations on a global scale value the well-established and tested project types. Important project types include landfill gas destruction, business emission reduction, afforestation/reforestation/revegetation, improved forest management, and reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation. Examples include Capricorn Ridge 4 Wind Farm, the Doe Mountain Forestry Project, and the Maple Hill Landfill Project, among several others.
For business clients, Terrapass even creates custom project portfolios. ” Our sustainability advisors help businesses find projects that are important for their industry, operations, customers, and employees”, Telleen says.
Terrapass usually offers a dozen specific projects that online customers can support in addition to the company’s world portfolio for regular online purchases. The company is now extending its strategic partnerships with a number of projects, so this decision is slowed down for a while. Customers of Terrapass will have a variety of interesting new projects to choose from starting January 1.
” Some of these will be available to both individuals and businesses”, Telleen says. These include small-landowner forestry initiatives that aid families in protecting and conserving their forest lands by preventing the need for logging to generate income. Additionally, there are projects that plug aging, abandoned oil wells that release methane into the air, putting health risks to nearby air and groundwater.
Every project Terrapass chooses to support must meet a set of requirements. For instance, the business simply offers carbon offsets made possible by initiatives that are currently reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Telleen explains that carbon reduction projects that have been producing and selling carbon credits for more than 20 years fund their construction and continued operation. While these older credits were made with legitimate carbon reductions, they can divert funding apart from projects that are introducing new credits to the market that are effective carbon reductions. By abusing carbon credits from projects that are constantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions, Terrapass and our customers are keeping up projects that continue to operate and reduce global carbon emissions day by day.
Also, Terrapass’s carbon offsets are certified by set industry standards and verified by an independent, accredited third party.
Carbon offsets must have a major scale and a steady level of high-integrity climate impact in order to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate goals, according to Telleen. This cannot be accomplished by individuals and projects from all over the world acting individually and inconsequentially. It requires strong and steady global governance to ensure market fairness, efficiency, transparency, and fraud prevention”.
Terrapass projects operate under registries approved by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market ( ICVCM), the leading global standard for effective governance, tracking, transparency, and robust independent third-party verification.
” Currently, 100 % of our carbon credits are verified by Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard, the Climate Action Reserve, and the American Carbon Registry”, Telleen says.
ICVCM-approved registries adhere to several standards: effective governance ( to ensure transparency, accountability, continuous improvement and the overall quality of carbon credits ), tracking ( to uniquely identify, record, and track project activities and carbon credits issued ), transparency ( providing comprehensive, transparent, and publicly available information on all project activities ), and independent third-party validation.
Additionally, Terrapass projects adhere to cutting-edge industry standards to make sure that purchases of carbon credits result in tangible and long-lasting climate benefits. Telleen notes that this includes our commitment to consistently expand our selection of ICVCM-approved project methodologies that are tested for ICVCM Core Carbon Principles.
These project standards include what’s called additional ( the carbon reduction would not occur without sustained carbon credit funding ), permanence ( the carbon reduction cannot be reversed, or it is protected for at least 40 years ), rigorous and accurate quantification ( carbon reductions represent real atmospheric impact that is verified using robust, credible methodologies and baselines ), and sustainable development benefits and safeguards ( project activities adhere to industry best practices on social and environmental safeguards while delivering positive sustainable development impacts ).
In addition to the project methodology and registry standards that ICVCM enforces, Terrapass conducts its individual project-specific due diligence.
” We evaluate features that are unique to each project, including ownership, history, additionality, permanence, existing operating status, site inspections, separate third-party assessments, and public information”, Telleen says.
An emissions calculator is provided on Terrapass ‘ website to help customers choose how many carbon offset credits to purchase. Additionally, the business maintains a blog on its website with a wealth of topics to help customers with a wide range of sustainability-related issues.
While it’s generally a good idea to purchase carbon offset credits, December is an important time of year for sustainability. Telleen says,” It is a time to reflect on what we accomplished and what we can also do before the year is over.” You can give the gift of Terrapass to those on your holiday gift list who value economically friendly ideas by downloading a Terrapass gift certificate from the Terrapass website.
” The gift of Terrapass is special because it allows us to give to the planet on behalf of our family, friends, ]and ] clients. It’s a chance to help someone who has a positive outlook on the year end it with optimism and great vibes for our planet.
For more information, visit www. terrapass.com.
