Things To Keep In Mind When Purchasing Carbon Offset
As people are realizing the devastating effects of global warming on the planet, instruments like carbon offset and carbon credits are gaining wide acceptance across the globe as effective tools for environment preservation.
If you want to nullify the adverse impact of your actions on the environment, then you can buy an amount of carbon offset, which is equivalent to your carbon footprint. Your buying of a carbon offset helps fund environment friendly initiatives such as power generation units making use of wind farms and solar energy.
Before going for carbon offset, you have to figure out how your activities and lifestyle are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. Among our usual actions that result in carbon emissions, the main are driving, flying in airplanes and using appliances that cause high power usage.
Once you have identified these activities, you should plan to give up some of them and reduce some as far as possible. Such an action oriented approach would lower the unfavourable effects that you create on the environment. You can lower your carbon footprint by making use of energy efficient lighting, by driving only as much as necessary and also by installing appropriate insulation to save power while using heating or air conditioning appliances.
After you have considered the steps you can take to reduce emissions, you must calculate your remaining carbon footprint, i.e., the amount of emissions caused by your remaining activities that are beyond your reasonable control. Most actions have their own specific manner of emission calculation, but you can get several good calculators on the internet that will help you in this regard.
Carbon offset providers counterbalance carbon emission from your actions by reducing emissions in any part of the globe through your buying of offset. There are different ways of reducing emissions and you can select a scheme from the ones offered by the offset providers for your investment. But you have to be careful while making your choice. To ensure that your money will be used properly you should only choose projects with solid credentials. There are many bureaus that undertake extensive quality checks to certify schemes and it is always advisable to opt for a project which has got such an agency approval.
Finally, you should arm yourself with sufficient knowledge on the subject. Through research, you will come to know the genuine offset providers and the types of schemes that are worthy of investment, and you can also carefully track how the scheme you have put your money in is performing.
Discover more about carbon credits and carbon offset and get a deeper understanding on how you can help in saving the environment.