Has anyone put carbon offsets into their budget?

Money Management
1

For Earth Day I was talking to an environmental professor about saving money and helping the environment. He had a simple but profound idea: When buying services that are necessary but bad for the environment (like a long flight), factor in the cost of something called a carbon offset.

Basically, carbon offsets are small investments in green programs like replanting forests or conserving land. There are calculators that tell you how much pollution your small purchase is offsetting, and it’s cheaper than you think.

For example a 12-hour flight produces TONS of pollution, literally. Three tons of carbon emissions. But it only costs about $30 in carbon offsets to make up for it. (You can read more of my conversation with Professor Brinkmann here.)

The idea seemed so simple that I started doing it myself. It kind of blew my mind. I found a couple websites where you can purchase carbon offsets, too. CarbonFund and Terrapass make it really easy (and they give you a certificate when you purchase on to give you a confidence boost).

Has anyone else tried this tactic? Do you have other environmentally friendly tips that also save or make you money?

1 Like
2

I had no idea about this! This is great – going to look into this more.

4 Likes
3

ADAM I didn’t no about it. But I try and up cycle
plastic bottles and turn them into other things.
I’ve seen bracelets made out of them.
Plastic spoons made into flowers.

Some people have made plastic bags into scrubbers
or rugs over sea they make them into hand bags.

So many things you can do with things that would go
into the trash if you look at it a different way.

3 Likes
4

This is a really interesting idea and something I had not previously considered.

This is something I am going to do some more research on and see if I can start putting it into practice.

Thanks for sharing!

(I clicked the link to The Penny Hoarder article and got an error, could you possibly edit that? If I knew what article you were linking to I would but wasn’t sure.)

4 Likes
5

This is something new to me! I haven’t heard of anything like this but it seems like a really great way to reduce your carbon footprint.

3 Likes
6

Moore Income posted:

This is a really interesting idea and something I had not previously considered.

This is something I am going to do some more research on and see if I can start putting it into practice.

Thanks for sharing!

(I clicked the link to The Penny Hoarder article and got an error, could you possibly edit that? If I knew what article you were linking to I would but wasn’t sure.)

Ah TY for letting me know. The link should be working now, and good luck implementing his idea! Let me know if it works out for you.

3 Likes
7

@adam I love this idea. I recently joined Arcadia Power after an article The Penny Hoarder published. It’s wonderful knowing I’m making a difference without it costing me anything. This, however, would take me a little further down the right path. Thank you for sharing this!

5 Likes