Going Carbon Neutral With 3Degrees

Since DSW Collective is a sustainable consulting firm, we take the environment very seriously.  Not only that, but we want to walk the talk that we give to our clients.  Know your carbon and water footprint and do something about it.  Recycle, reduce, reuse.  Remember that from kindergarden?  Well times are changing, the new slogan is "calculate, reduce, offset".  Some of you might know what carbon offsets are and some of you might not.  Everything we do creates carbon: utilities, driving our cars, riding MAX, etc.  Carbon is actually the umbrella term for all major greenhouse gases.  Offsetting this, using companies like 3Degrees, helps counter balance all the carbon that we as individuals and companies dump into the atmosphere everyday.

I'll admit, when I started researching this I was a little be of a skeptic.  Run some company's calculator, get a number, send them a check, and "be green".  Kind of seems like a scam to me.  But the more research I've done, through reading, monitoring how much our company drives and flies, and doing various calculators for me as an individual and for our company has really opened my eyes to how much each of us contributes to carbon emissions.

This is why I love 3Degrees.  They are local, their office is actually kitty corner to ours, which makes meetings a breeze.  And they actually inform and allow your company to pick which projects you want to invest in.  This makes it way more tangible to me.  For example, DSW is splitting our offsets between two different projects.  One is a landfill gas capture in Neosho, Missouri and the other is a Wind Farm project in Dickey County, North Dakota and McPherson County, South Dakota.  Another great thing about 3Degrees has high standards for their projects:  Gold Standard, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), California Climate Action Registry (CCAR), Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), and Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), so their projects are legit.

An interesting fact about 3Degrees, the name comes from the scientific belief that by the year 2100, the earth's temperature may rise as much as 3 degrees celsius.  This raise in temperature will result in 1/6 of the world's population becoming "climate refugees" as a result of flooding or droughts (depending on location).

What are your thoughts on carbon offsets?