Carbon Offsets: Problem or Solution?

In one year of driving, I create about 3,700 pounds of carbon dioxide.

It's a big number, but considering I drive about 4,000 miles each year, it's a lot lower than the average. It's also just one aspect of my personal carbon footprint – a term that's bandied around a lot when people talk about the environment and sustainability.

It's also a term that's gaining popularity in the tradeshow world as show managers begin to tally the footprint of their shows.

Yet another term that pops up when people start discussing carbon footprints is carbon offsets, which people and companies purchase to mitigate the use of electricity, shipping and travel (just to name a few) and go toward funding projects like wind farms.

I've always seen buying carbon offsets as a little like cheating.

Why not just manufacture and travel and waste as much as you want, and then calculate your carbon footprint, purchase carbon offsets and call yourself “carbon neutral?”

Call me old-fashioned, but I think there should be a little work, or at least thought, to helping the environment. I don't like the idea of foregoing tried-and-true practices like conservation and recycling in favor of offsets. That's not telling the whole story, which is why I'm always suspicious when a show announces it's purchasing carbon offsets.

One of the most recent to do that was one of the largest shows in the country, Intl. CES. According to Russell Simon, Carbonfund.org spokesman, in addition to other green measures, the show offset 20,130 metric tons of carbon through the Web site, which calculates carbon footprints and sells offsets.

Intl. CES attendees also were encouraged to offset the carbon produced by traveling to the show, but Simon said, only a few dozen of the roughly 85,990 attendees took advantage of that option.

“We've done this with a few different conferences – giving people the option – and hardly anyone ever does it,” he added.

My conversation with Simon didn't resolve all my doubts about the practice, but I don't view it with the same skeptism I did before I called Carbonfund.

First, there's the company tagline: “Reduce what you can, offset what you can't.” Simon told me Carbonfund encourages as much reducing, reusing and recycling as possible before offsets enter the picture. There also are different types of projects that people can put their offset purchasing money toward, including reforestation and renewable energy.

But it was when I asked whether Carbonfund officials are concerned people will use the service as a band-aid fix instead of a true environmental solution that Simon said something that gave me hope.

“I wouldn't call it a band-aid; I would call it a bridge,” he said. “Driving money toward those technologies like we're doing is a way to lower the price and bring that about faster.”

I'm a firm believer in everyone taking baby steps to make a big solution. And if carbon offsets can help people take that first step toward supporting environmental solutions and sustainability, I'm all for it.

Stephanie Corbin is assistant editor at Tradeshow Week. She can be reached at stephanie.corbin@reedbusiness.com.