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Carbon offsetting
Dec. 6th, 2006 10:25 amFor those of you interested in such things, a report has recently been published whose purpose is to rate thirty vendors of carbon offsets as a guide to consumers.
However, on the Terrablog, Adam has made a highly critical response to the validity of this report's conclusions, including some general comments about the fact that the report's authors have a vision of how the carbon offset industry 'should' be run; the eight vendors identified as the top providers all concur with this vision. (It looks like there will be an interesting debate in the comments.)
This is especially interesting given the recent flow of debate about the microfinance/microcredit industry, and the conflicting business ideologies there. In microcredit, however, the field is large enough for different people to work in different ways. I suspect that in carbon offsetting the same doesn't apply - after all, either it works effectively or it doesn't.
I should point out that I plan to offset all my future flights, probably with Terrapass, and am planning to offset my energy consumption at home as soon as I've got the disposable income to do it; when I return to the UK I'll switch to a UK company. I've also not waded through the report yet, although I plan to do so as a relief from reading about freedmen at some point today.
However, on the Terrablog, Adam has made a highly critical response to the validity of this report's conclusions, including some general comments about the fact that the report's authors have a vision of how the carbon offset industry 'should' be run; the eight vendors identified as the top providers all concur with this vision. (It looks like there will be an interesting debate in the comments.)
This is especially interesting given the recent flow of debate about the microfinance/microcredit industry, and the conflicting business ideologies there. In microcredit, however, the field is large enough for different people to work in different ways. I suspect that in carbon offsetting the same doesn't apply - after all, either it works effectively or it doesn't.
I should point out that I plan to offset all my future flights, probably with Terrapass, and am planning to offset my energy consumption at home as soon as I've got the disposable income to do it; when I return to the UK I'll switch to a UK company. I've also not waded through the report yet, although I plan to do so as a relief from reading about freedmen at some point today.
