In 2003 Carbonfund.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, was established. They made it their goal to provide an easy and affordable way for individuals or businesses to reduce their carbon footprints, thereby taking the vision of a greener tomorrow one step closer to reality. Today, they have more than 1,700 partnered businesses. The organization strives to achieve their goal of speeding up the transition of the present environmental condition to a clean energy future.Carbonfund.org
To realize their mission of a ZeroCarbon world, Carbonfund.org began their fight against global warming through massive climate change education, carbon offset and reductions, and public outreach programs. Their central theme of “Reduce What You Can, Offset What You Can’t” gained much support not only from other environmental organizations, but also from various government agencies and industrial sectors.
Their CarbonFree Partner program enabled small and large businesses to help in their crusade against global warming through carbon emission reduction and offsetting. They also issue the internationally recognized CarbonFree Product Certification for carbon-neutral products. These products have offset their emissions through carbon reduction projects so they add zero net harm to our climate.
In addition to this program, Carbonfund.org also encourages steps to take to reduce your carbon footprint, offsetting your daily commute and making your website carbon neutral.
What is Carbon Offsetting?
Carbonfund.org offers businesses or individuals the opportunity to offset their carbon usage. A carbon offset balances out the emissions that cannot be reduced. To determine your personal carbon footprint or that of your business, you can make use of the carbon footprint calculator at Carbonfund.org. Once you have determined your emissions output, you can make a contribution to reduce your carbon footprint.
This contribution will be used to fund third party validated projects in energy efficiency, renewable energy or reforestation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Your donation or contribution to the carbon fund will then retire those offsets from a project. This means that any carbon credits that were generated by projects, once purchased, will be out of circulation forever.
A classic example of a Carbon Neutral Project is the VW Forest in Louisiana with contributions from the carmaker Volkswagen. Since every car they produce emits a significant amount of carbon in the atmosphere, they solicited the help of Carbonfund.org to reduce the emission of the cars that they manufacture. This carbon offset project is responsible for planting 280,395 trees on hundreds of acres in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. This reforestation project enabled the carmaker and the VW community to offset 416,429 tons of carbon or 80,387 vehicle emissions.
Do Carbon Offsets Really Help the Environment?
While Carbonfund.org is among many who are staunch believers in the way that they are helping the environment, there are other who don’t share their opinion. One of these non-believers is Rush Limbaugh, to no surprise, who states, “Carbon offsets are a dodgy way for someone to claim to be carbon neutral even as they consume large amounts of carbon based energy. The notion that selling carbon offsets actually helps the environment is taken as a given by those who sell them and by those who buy them. But at this point it's unproven.”
Reduce Your Own Carbon Footprint
You may feel that the crusade against global warming is the responsibility of everyone who lives on this planet. Or, you may feel that there’s a lot of hocus pocus going on these days. Either way, you have a choice of how you want to conduct your life and the size of the footprint you’d like to leave behind.
