Recently I wrote about sites offering ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and wondered about the evidence behind their claims. They usually advocate change in one of three ways:
- Suggesting actions for voluntarily reducing emissions.
- Collecting consumer money and sponsoring energy projects.
- Getting corporate sponsors to support greenhouse gas removal.
Make Me Sustainable falls into the first group, helping people develop voluntary plans to reduce their emissions footprints. MMS was recently covered in VentureBeat, who found that "no other site we’re aware of can track your carbon usage daily." But what's the point in computing something like this on a daily basis? To me that's not a very useful snapshot.
But I do like how Make Me Sustainable talks dollars-and-cents, providing evidence of monetary rewards
from greener living: As shown above, one action I chose will save me $11.83 per year.
I think this is a great way to keep people engaged once they're
over the initial charm of creating a carbon reduction plan. Unfortunately, the MMS site wasn't
functioning very well when I visited: Pages loaded slowly and incorrectly. I
realize it's in beta, but you can see from this display how difficult it was to use
the "Manager" feature.
Is there something I can buy? Falling into the second group, Terrapass says they help you "undo" your contribution to global warming -- and that it's "simple, affordable, and verified." By answering questions about my car, I got an emissions report and a recommendation to pay $79.95 for a Road Tripper TerraPass.
The pass is supposed to offset 20,000 lbs of CO2 from one year of driving. TerraPass provides decals and bumper stickers (we get bragging rights, they get publicity). With the revenue, they fund clean-energy projects: "TerraPass is audited by the non-profit Center for Resource Solutions to verify the impact of our clean energy investments." And they offer a money-back guarantee. Kudos to them.
Be Green Now is another in this category -- they calculate the cost of the offsets you want to achieve, and then show what projects will be funded with the money you pay for your BeGreen Carbon Offsets -- see map below.The offsets are achieved through wind farm and solar projects run by Green Mountain Energy Company.
Care2 has been working with environmental campaigns for several years, unlike new entrants into this space. They fall into the third category. Care2 greets you with messages like: "Free click! 4,255 pounds offset today!" They want us to "click the 'Offset 1 Pound of Carbon' button every day to remove a pound of CO2 from the atmosphere. Care2 will then make a donation to pay for the removal." Apparently they have corporate sponsors who fund the reduction projects. But is this verified, and how much do they donate? Where is the evidence that this is actually improving the environment? I'm not sure people will feel very engaged by just clicking.
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