Low Impact

One of the big sources of CO2 many of us are directly responsible for is our cars. Given that a car pumps out 2.2 kg of CO2 for every litre of petrol, it quickly adds up. In fact, the average car in Australia puts out around 4.3 tonnes of CO2. There are obviously ways to reduce the amount we drive - car pooling, public transport and cycling to name a few - but for most of us, a car is part of our transport picture. So to help sleep soundly at night, we need some way of offsetting those car emissions.

Greenfleet is an organisation that has been operating in Australia for almost 10 years. For $40 a year, they’ll plant 17 native trees. They’ve calculated that this is the number of trees required to absorb 1 year worth of the average car’s CO2 emissions. And in a rare case of being rewarded for doing the right thing, this $40 is tax deductible!

Planting these trees does more than just absorb your car’s CO2. Trees can also help with the soil salinity problems facing a lot of Australia’s rural land, and provide habitat for native species. Not bad for $40! It’s worthwhile to check out the Greenfleet website to see what they do, and where they’ve done their plantings.

Obviously Greenfleet are not the only group offering this service. There are a number of organisations that allow you to offset your emissions (for any aspect of your life - not just your car) - when time permits, we’ll try to do a posting covering some of them. In the meantime, one site worth a look at is NRMA’s (one of Australia’s biggest insurers) www.climatehelp.com.au - even the big-end of town is getting in on the act!

Categories: environment, green, offsets