Carbon offsettingCarbon offsetting
Checklist
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Concentrate on reducing your family’s carbon emissions before you consider a carbon offsetting scheme
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If you want to offset, choose a company that publishes full details of its carbon offsetting activities, including how much of your payment goes to each project. The most transparent in our research was Climate Care
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The carbon offsetting projects you're supporting should be verifiable, with clear details on the website of the work going on and transparent pricing. If this information isn’t available, go elsewhere or ask for more details
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‘Green’ car insurance deals that offset your car’s carbon emissions can be expensive. It may work out cheaper to choose a Best Buy car insurance policy and offset your own carbon emissions with a firm that did well in our test
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When buying new appliances, check their energy efficiency and go for A-rated items
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When you replace other household items, look for good-value, low-energy options. The cost of low-energy light bulbs, for example, has fallen dramatically in recent years
The average UK household produces around 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. If you’re feeling guilty about the impact you’re having on the planet, you might want to offset the damage by doing something positive, like planting a tree.
There are more than a dozen UK companies offering to help you offset your emissions in this and other ways, but our investigation found major differences in the services they offer and the prices they charge (see 'Offsetting sites compared').
How carbon offsetting should work
We asked members of the Which? online panel for their views on carbon offsetting in August and September 2007. More than 90% have heard of carbon offsetting, but only 7% have tried it. Of those who haven’t yet tried carbon offsetting, 68% would consider doing so in the future.
Carbon dioxide emissions
Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) are burnt. Many of our daily activities, such as driving, heating the home or watching TV, cause carbon dioxide to be created - UK carbon dioxide emissions total over 500 million tonnes a year.
By cutting back on these activities and using more renewable energy, we can shrink our carbon dioxide output, known as our ‘carbon footprint’.
Carbon offsetting schemes
Carbon offsetting schemes claim to combat global warming by dealing with the carbon emissions that can't be prevented. You give them money and this is invested in projects that either remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or prevent that carbon dioxide from being created.
If you reduce and offset your whole carbon footprint, you are ‘carbon neutral’.
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