I’ve just booked flights on EasyJet, and with a click I could offset my share of the carbon production of the flight.
When I fly for work my company offsets the carbon produced, but this is the first time I’ve been able to do it on a private flight.
I think it’s great, they’ve chosen UN certified partners for the carbon offsetting and are trying to do it at minimal cost to the customer. Their carbon offset programme seems to be reasonably well thought through.
They’ve been in trouble for some of their claims, apparently they referred to their flights as being lower carbon emitters per person than a Prius. A pretty wild and easily refuted statement. However very few cars emit carbon at anything close to the 104 g/km rate quoted for the Prius, most people are driving cars at a higher emmission rate. So while the statement by EasyJet was incorrect, the concept behind the comparison was not so far off.
I know there’s a lot of “greenwash” out there, and people could argue that the company should avoid this externality and just pay for the carbon emmission themselves. However this seems like a really easy way of letting the consumer make greener choices. It’s too easy to demand that companies become carbon neutral but the forces us to put our money where our mouth is. I like it.
EasyJet could impress me more by showing me some statistics on how many people on my flight have paid for their emissions, and some overall reporting on how many people choose the option.
image aeroplane via pixabay
Change Meme 