Carbon neutral shipping is measuring the footprint of shipments and then purchasing carbon offsets to negate their footprint.  The heavier the package, the longer the distance travelled, and the most fuel hungry the transportation method, the more CO2 that needs to be offset for carbon neutrality. 

In effect, by offsetting a shipment, you are paying to take an action that reduces carbon output into the atmosphere in an amount equal to the footprint of your shipment.  Examples of those actions are the creation of wind power projects, solar arrays, or the capture of gasses from landfills.  For power projects, your money putting killowatts of power onto the power grid, which reduces the demand for sources like coal power.  Fortunately there are accurate ways of measuring the impact from these projects and legitimate offsetters use third party certifications to verify and quantify the reductions they have achieved.  

In some circles, the idea of offsetting emissions is considered “buying off your conscience” while you continue to maintain a large carbon footprint.  There definitely is some truth to that idea and is a reason why we’ve tried to make Green Shipping an educational tool for shippers.  With the mapping technology we use to display shipments, you can see how your shipments get from point A to point B and how much CO2 they’ve emitted. 

If you follow your shipments, you can quickly learn how your up-front decisions affect the footprint of your actions.  For instance, let’s say you’re buying a new computer on Amazon.com.  Of course “super saver” shipping is free, but for an extra $12 you can get it in just two days.  Most people don’t realize that air shipments emit over 8 times the amount of CO2 that ground shipments do, and make the choice based on the convenience/cost ratio.  We are hoping that as people learn to estimate the impact of their future actions by understanding the impact of their past actions, that we can make a big difference independent of whether we purchase carbon offsets for full carbon neutrality.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Carbon Offsets, Green Shipping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.