Where to Buy
Where to Buy Carbon Offsets - Here Are Some Options
To get you started without overwhelming you, we’ve listed the following organizations where you can purchase carbon offsets. In addition to these, check our resource listings for other green tag and renewable energy certificate buying options.
Carbonfund.org
In addition to supporting climate-friendly projects, Carbonfund.org purchases and retires carbon reductions. With their contributors’ support, Carbonfund.org purchases and retires the carbon offsets and green power on their behalf, ensuring the CO2 is reduced and the environmental protection is gained. To accommodate different offset preferences for renewable energy, carbon sequestration or energy efficiency projects, Carbonfund.org gives buyers the option of supporting renewable energy, energy efficiency, reforestation projects, or a combination. Carbonfund.org ensures the projects meet the highest standards of verification so you can feel confident with your choice. To learn more about Carbonfund.org’s verification and standards, click here.
To learn more about specific offset projects, click here.
The Climate Trust
The Climate Trust has offset 1.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from $4.9 million invested into offset projects, making it one of the largest offset buyers in the U.S. and world markets. The Climate Trust will invest in verified and monitored high quality offsets and retire them to maximize the environmental benefits. Your donation to the Climate Trust will be used to invest in their project portfolio which includes: energy efficiency, renewable energy, cogeneration, transportation efficiency, and reforestation projects. The Climate Trust will send you a certificate in recognition of your offset donation, and an annual update on the projects your donation helps support. Click here to see current projects. Click here to purchase offsets.
NativeEnergy
NativeEnergy is a privately held Native American energy company that helps build Native American, farmer-owned, and charitable purpose renewable energy projects that create social, economic, and environmental benefits. NativeEnergy works with smaller projects that need help to make it to the finish line by developing a patent-pending business method that fixes a real market failure: Simply put, buyers want short term purchases, and projects need long-term purchases. This market failure is preventing completion of many good renewable energy projects. With a single purchase, NativeEnergy customers bring a lifetime of support to a truly new clean energy project, directly helping it get financed and built.
Click here to learn more about NativeEnergy’s different carbon offset buying programs.
Buying Renewable Energy Certificates to Offset Carbon Emissions
What Are Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)?
One of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions is electricity generation. By choosing to buy green power from your local utility, you can lower your greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.
However, if green power is not yet available in your area, you can still offset your electricity use by purchasing what are known as 'renewable energy certificates' (RECs). Also known as 'green tags' or 'tradable renewable certificates', RECs represent the environmental attributes associated with renewable electricity such as wind and solar. They are typically sold in kilowatt-hours or megawatt-hours. RECs are not electricity per se, but have the same environmental effect as buying green electricity. Here's how it works. For every unit of electricity generated from a renewable energy project, there is a corresponding REC that can be sold. While utility customers cannot dictate which electrons they receive (since electricity from both conventional and renewable energy projects are mixed on the grid), they can choose where their money goes. By purchasing RECs, customers can choose to support clean, renewable energy. The money generated by the sale of RECs goes to new and existing renewable energy facilities, providing a financial incentive for developers to build more renewable energy projects.
Here are a few examples of companies selling renewable energy certificates:
New Wind Energy Blocks, offered by Community Energy
Renewable Energy Certificates, offered by Renewable Choice Energy
