Triple offsetting our household emissions

[GarethC]

We've just started doing this. I know I discussed the proposal elsewhere a bit, but it feels like it deserves its own topic and I'd appreciate views on the strategy and rationale.

We’re triple offsetting our household’s emissions. It will cost us £37 per month altogether to offset three times the emissions of two adults and two kids in a big, leaky old home.

Why triple?

1. We’re lucky enough to be able to afford it, and want to do more to help reach net zero
2. It will help redress our massive historic emissions (that honeymoon in Argentina…)
3. It addresses concerns that offsetting might not achieve as much as promised
4. While first and foremost we’ll strive to reduce our emissions as fast as possible (less meat and dairy, less flying and driving etc.), we’ll never reach zero (the electric car we can’t afford yet still has a footprint).

We used https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx. Once we'd calculated our emissions, we used “Offset now” and set up a monthly payment. We support the Global and Americas portfolios and Community Projects. They’re the cheapest, but should be just as impactful as other schemes.

Any thoughts on our initiative?

[Fintray]

I haven't looked into that myself but applaud you for doing that and hope that your offsetting really does its bit to help.

[GarethC]

Thanks Fintray, it -seems- a no brainer to me unless I'm missing something.

Things like a new (do it all) EV would cost me £30k+, and a new heating system or vaguely helpful insulation circa £10k, and only reduce my emissions a bit. So £440 a year (less than the annual depreciation on the EV) to offset three times our TOTAL emissions seems more than worth it. I'll still buy the EV etc., so this is an AND measure, not an OR, but I can't afford them yet.

For a long time I was focused on earning a return on any investment in renewables, but given the massive historic damage I've done to the environment, ultimately that seemed a bit, well, mean or something.

While things like Ripple are awesome, I don't mind not earning a return, and it's a lot cheaper (and I -think- arguably more beneficial) to reduce emissions in developing countries where land and other relevant costs are a fraction as high and they're burning a lot more coal or running dirtier diesels.

[Mr Gus]

The availability of ripple makes it easier than having the finger pointed back at us by developing countries (who we hopefully help skip neatly over the deforestation, coal & other environment stuffing tech) that householders can buy in from a piffling amount upwards without all the council, dno faff.

(hopefully inspiring flat dwellers too)