Carbon Offsets

A friend asks:

A quick question: if somebody wants to donate money to reduce his or her carbon footprint, which org(s) would you recommend that he or she donate to?

Do you have a good answer to this? I don’t want answers that deny the premise. We’re assuming someone wants to donate money to reduce his or her carbon footprint, and choosing an organization based on this. We’re not comparing this against other activities, like cutting personal carbon emissions or voting for politicians who want to cut carbon emissions.

Here’s my best answer so far:

The Gold Standard Foundation is one organization that tackles my friend’s question. See for example:

• Gold Standard, Offset your emissions.

Here they list various ways to offset your carbon emissions, currently with prices between $11 and $18 per tonne.

The Gold Standard Foundation is a non-profit foundation headquartered in Geneva that tries to ensure that carbon credits are real and verifiable and that projects make measurable contributions to sustainable development.