[AGL] carbon neutral 2

[Harry Edwards]

this is one of the emails bounced yesterday. mebbe it'll get through 
today.           twisty


Some choices can be overwhelming. Two months after moving, Ms. Chafe is 
still buying conventional power. "I'm trying to understand exactly 
where my money is going before I make a decision," she said.

It can be even harder to sort through the many groups vying to shrink 
your carbon footprint. Clif Bar, a company in Berkeley, Calif., that 
sells energy bars, also sells $2 "Cool Tags" at concerts and sports 
events to offset the cost of the drive; the money goes to NativeEnergy 
for wind farms. Sites like Carbonfund.org and  GreenTagsUSA.org have 
carbon calculators to estimate pollution and offer products to offset 
it. Ford Motor has a partnership with TerraPass to encourage drivers to 
buy carbon offsets.

So many players have entered this market that consumers can shop 
around. Ms. Pashby, the human resources manager in Baltimore who offset 
her 14-ton carbon footprint for $57 through the Conservation Fund, 
would have spent $200 through GreenTagsUSA.org, a Web site sponsored by 
the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, a nonprofit group that 
supports renewable energy, or $77 through Carbonfund.org, a nonprofit 
organization that promotes ways to reduce or offset carbon emissions.

Although these vendors all seem to sell the same thing, the approaches 
can vary. Some, like the Conservation Fund, plant trees to absorb 
carbon. Others, like TerraPass and NativeEnergy, try to avoid pollution 
in the first place by backing certain energy projects through green 
tags and other methods. Some groups, like Carbonfund.org, try to do 
both.

Ms. Pashby chose the Conservation Fund because "trees are better 
looking than wind farms." But it's not clear which option is better for 
the planet.

  "The challenge for consumers is that there is no uniformly accepted 
standard for what constitutes a valid reduction in global warming 
pollution," said Daniel Lashof, science director of the climate center 
of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The exceptions, he added, are 
green tags carrying the Green-e certification, a seal of approval 
issued by the Center for Resource Solutions, a nonprofit group based in 
San Francisco that verifies that clean-power companies sell the amount 
of power they say they do.

That label, however, is limited to green tags, and doesn't apply to 
companies that sell a mix of projects. Those involving reforestation 
can be especially difficult to verify.

"There's not a whole lot of great tracking for building forests in 
Costa Rica," said Brendan Bell, associate Washington representative of 
the Sierra Club's global warming and energy issues program. "How do you 
know the same acre isn't being sold to a bunch of people?"

Some marketers are trying to improve accountability. The Conservation 
Fund sends certificates to supporters, telling them when and where 
their trees were planted. TerraPass has transactions verified by the 
Center for Resource Solutions. And the Climate Neutral Network, an 
independent nonprofit group in Portland, Ore., has developed a "Climate 
Cool" certification for carbon offset products, though it has not been 
widely adopted. The Center for Resource Solutions is also developing an 
offset certification similar to Green-e that it hopes to introduce this 
summer.

"We're trying to develop standards so we can make this transparent and 
not have scandals that destroy the market," said Lars Kvale, an analyst 
at the Center for Resource Solutions.

ACCOUNTABILITY may be especially important in the for-profit arena. 
NativeEnergy, TerraPass and others profit by buying and then reselling 
green tags and other investments.

"I was very surprised to hear later that TerraPass is a for-profit 
company," Dr. Waters, the Sacramento doctor, said. "That may very well 
have affected my decision to buy. I like to think that every nickel of 
what I'm doing goes to support the cause."

TerraPass says that it tries to inform all customers about its 
for-profit status, and that its business model has allowed it to 
attract capital, grow faster and thus better serve the environment.

For now, at least, that is good enough for Dr. Waters. "It makes me 
feel like I'm doing something, and it feels very personal," he said. 
"I'd like to think that when it's time to renew, I'll comparison shop 
and find the group that's most efficient."