A whole new year begins and it is time for our New Year's resolutions. Slimming, exercising, recycling and reducing our carbon footprint.

Some of our customers email us asking whether it is realistic to expect people to offset their footprint in times of financial crisis. Our answer is yes. Now it's more important than ever. The carbon footprint of the average person in the UK or Europe is about 10 tons of carbon a year, and this costs £6 per month to offset. It is a very small price to make a person zero footprint (or carbon neutral).

It is well known that offsetting our petrol emissions would only add about two pence to the price of the litre of petrol. This is an insignificant amount compared to the huge fluctuations in the price of petrol in recent months. Some supermarkets even offer 5p discounts per litre of petrol - it is ridiculous that they don't take the more consistent approach with the environmental policies that they claim to endorse and instead offer a 3p discount and pay 2p to offset the emissions so that the customer knows they are buying "carbon neutral" petrol. This would be an innovation and it wouldn't impact an awful lot on price.

We also get emails from people telling us that what one should do is cut emissions. Obviously reducing emissions is fundamental. But not the only goal. The principle of "offset the rest" is important. We will always have a carbon footprint, however much we reduce emissions, and the best thing to do for the enviroment is to offset the rest.

So, here is my suggestion to you: have a peek at our CO2 calculator, and in the section "QUICK", enter 10 tons. If you offset ten tons this will make you zero footprint for the entire 2009 if your carbon footprint is around average.

Brunella Bell  

brunella@carbonica.org

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

Click  here to reduce your carbon footprint