The Shop Is Live & Carbon Offsetting Explained

If you haven’t noticed already, the Green Steve Shop is now officially live in an early launch phase. This means that you are free to register for an account and start doing your Christmas shopping through it.

There might be a few technical bugs but you can rest assured I am doing everything I can to get them sorted. I am also adding more and more companies to it on a daily basis but, seeing as this is a one man band, it is going to take me quite a while to get all the stores live.

You may still be wondering exactly what the Shop is all about. If this is the case, I want to briefly explain what happens when you use it…

1. Firstly, you will still complete your purchase on the retailer websites and not on Green Steve so you can be confident that any transactions are 100% secure.
2. When you finish your shopping, I will receive a small amount of commission from the store.
3. I will take that commission and purchase carbon offsetting credits with it.

At its simplest, this is the whole process. Just 3 little steps.

But Steve, What Is Carbon Offsetting & Why Should I Care?

Good question. I realise that not everyone is going to know what carbon offsetting is or why it matters. If you are feeling particularly brave and want to know the full set of arguments for and against, then read my mammoth guide to carbon offsetting here.

A quick warning, it is over 5,000 words long in its own right and should not be tackled without lots of time and a healthy dose of sugar or caffeine to keep you awake.

But for those of you who just want a quick overview then strap yourself in and let us begin.

What Carbon Offsetting IS NOT

The most important thing to remember is that carbon offsetting is NOT an excuse to continue polluting as much as you like without any effort to reduce your carbon footprint.

It is not a magic bullet that is going to solve all of our climate change problems.

It is not a form of payment for pollution. It is not a currency to be exchanged for emissions.

What Carbon Offsetting IS

In essence, offsetting is the process by which an individual or organisation can, in some way, negate their greenhouse gas emissions by paying for an equivalent reduction in emissions by someone else.

Most commonly, this takes the form of projects in the developing world where costs are lower.

It may be investment in renewable energy, efficiency savings which lead to lower energy consumption or a paid for, targeted effort to reduce the amount of deforestation that is occurring.

Why Is Offsetting A Good Idea?

Carbon offsetting not only helps to maintain emissions at current levels (in essence it leaves the environment no worse off than it is now) but it can also lead to better quality of life for those involved in the offsetting project.

Take my article on cleaner cookstoves for example; this is one type of project that carbon offsetting credits can go towards and while they undoubtedly reduce the carbon emissions against previous models of stove, they also provide other tangible benefits such as maintaining habitats for local wildlife, reducing the health risks of cooking indoors and leaving families with greater disposable incomes to use for things such as education or better sanitation.

Who Should Be Offsetting?

As you’ll find out if you attempt to read my monster article on carbon offsetting, I am not for everyone using it.

I believe that big businesses should be focussing their time and money on efficiency savings while funding their own renewable energy projects to achieve the most effective reductions in their own greenhouse gas emissions.

For individuals and small businesses, however, carbon offsetting can justifiably be utlisied although I do believe we need to be reducing our impact on the environment as much as possible before we offset. As I stated above, offsetting cannot be used as an excuse to continue polluting.

What Does The Green Steve Shop Do Again?

So now that you know roughly what carbon offsetting is, I’ll reiterate what the Green Steve Shop does.

For every purchase you make (and I am a realist in the sense that I accept people buy things as much as I might discourage unnecessary purchases), I will receive a small commission. The amount I get is determined by the store you buy from and how much you spend.

I take this commission and I purchase carbon offsetting credits that will fund projects around the world.

So while I would prefer you to buy as little as possible, when you do need to make a purchase I would love it if you could do it via the Green Steve Shop so that at least some environmental good will come of it.

Steve (156 Posts)

I am chief writer and editor on Green Steve. Blogging since 2011, I like to delve into a wide number of topics to help people reduce their carbon footprint. You should follow me on Twitter here. And add me to your Google+ circles here.

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