Offset Air Travel
If you need to fly, consider purchasing carbon offsets to lower your impact. Until we find an alternative fuel for air travel (which many bright minds are working on!), this is a great way to make a difference.
Your Impact
Action Steps & Tips
Introduction
Until we have safe, carbon-free air travel options, the best choice is to reduce our air travel. However, if you need to fly, carbon offsets are a way to balance out your impact. Carbon offsets are small contributions to projects that lower carbon emissions like installing solar panels or planting trees. It’s easy—you contribute to a project and receive credit for a certain amount of carbon emissions reduced. It doesn’t cost much and helps to offset your impact when air travel is an important part of your plans.
Many bright minds are working on creating a safe, carbon-free air travel option! In the future, our impact from flying will decrease as we develop safer, alternative fuels. Until then, an offset is a great way to lower your impact if you need to fly!
1Learn how carbon offsets work
How carbon offsets work. You pay a small amount of money to support projects that lower carbon emissions, like planting trees or installing solar panels. You can pay for a specific amount of reductions to match your air travel impact. Offset programs (the good ones) are certified and guarantee that your contribution will result in emissions reductions.
Cost. The best part? Offsets are not expensive. For example, a typical round trip 4-hour flight from Chicago to San Francisco produces about 3,000 lbs of carbon emissions. You can buy offsets for that round trip flight for only $15 from Terrapass. That’s about the same as the cost of going to the movies.
Pros and cons of offsets. Offsets are helpful for emissions we can’t avoid, like air travel, where is currently not an affordable and accessible alternative option. However, because offsets are relatively easy to buy, sometimes folks think, "Why can’t I just offset my gas powered-car or other emissions?". It sounds good, and technically you could, but it will not solve the problem.
To stop climate change and protect our future, we must stop using fossil fuels. This means transitioning our electricity, cars and home energy use to clean carbon-free sources of power like solar and wind. If everyone looks to carbon offsets, rather than making these important changes, we will not get there. The best plan is to reduce air travel whenever possible, offset air travel when you need to fly and make plans to transition your other fossil fuel uses where there are alternatives! We now have affordable and accessible options for our everyday fossil fuel use on the ground that can actually save you money! To learn more, check out the Learn about solutions action.
2Find an offset program
There are many carbon offsetting options. Some airlines, like United, and travel agents offer carbon offsets with their purchases. There are also other independent offset programs like Terrapass and our offset programs through the link above. Carbon offsets fund many types of projects, from building wind turbines to capturing methane from landfills to planting trees and restoring forests. Since there are many options, here are some guidelines for choosing offsets.
Choose the right program. Many carbon offset programs are careful to make sure that your money goes to actual carbon emissions reductions. However, some programs don’t follow best practices and it is hard to know if you are really paying for reductions. It is difficult to check this out on your own. The best way to ensure quality is to choose a well-known, certified program, like Terrapass, or purchase through an airline directly, where offsets are generally required to meet strict standards. You can learn more about certified carbon offsets at Green-e.
3Purchase offsets and start packing!
Congrats! By supporting renewable energy and other important offset programs, you have made an important contribution to creating a safe and healthier future. Enjoy your trip!