Step 3: Offset your remaining greenhouse gas emissions.
Once you've done all you can do to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions, the final step is to offset your remaining emissions by purchasing "carbon credits". What is a carbon credit (sometimes called a carbon offset)? It is an investment through another organization in projects to reduce greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions. The most common projects sponsor solar and wind energy in the U.S. or abroad, and tree planting (trees capture and store carbon from the atmosphere).
For example, a carbon calculator may estimate that your automobile travel each year produces one metric ton of carbon emissions, valued at $10 a ton. In a carbon-offset program, you send that $10 to an organization that funds projects to cut carbon emissions.
By reducing your carbon emissions and purchasing offsets for the rest, you can become a "carbon-neutral".
The following carbon credit programs have undergone some type of third-party certification to help ensure that funds are well spent. If you wish, check out the projects each organization sponsors and select those closest to your interests:
The Carbon Fund
www.carbonfund.org
Terrapass
www.terrapass.com
Solar Electric Light Fund
www.self.org/cnc.asp
Native Energy
www.nativenergy.com
Sustainable Travel International www.sustainabletravelinternational.org/documents/op_carbonoffsets.html
The David Suzuki Foundation also offers an excellent, comprehensive web site with links to carbon offset information, calculators and programs:
www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/carbon_neutral.asp