New project: Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy

Another project up for public comment

Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy is located in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, near Lake Michigan and Green Bay. The dairy has been family owned and operated for over 60 years, and is currently run by Innovative Dairy Farmer of the Year Award winner John Pagel. The project has recently installed an 800kW generator and 4 MMBtu/hr boiler that is powered by gas collected from its anaerobic digester. TerraPass makes all of its projects available for public comment before they...

Continue reading »

New project: Crow Wing County landfill

Another project up for public comment

Crow Wing County landfill is in Brainerd, Minnesota, about two hours north of Minneapolis. Despite its small size, the landfill is an innovator that has achieved extraordinarily high recycling rates. One of their most recent initiatives is a landfill gas collection and flaring operation, which TerraPass has the pleasure of presenting to you now. You know the drill. Check out the project and please send any questions or comments to projects@terrapass.com by Dec. 4....

Continue reading »

Real-time energy stats. With owls.

Some very cool stuff is happening at one of our carbon offset projects, the Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority landfill in south-central Pennsylvania.

The GLRA project captures landfill methane, the fourth-largest source of US anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (see this handy EPA fact sheet; all fossil fuel combustion is lumped into one source category). The project prevents methane from escaping the landfill by sucking it into pipes and pumping it into electricity generators which destroy the methane and finally send power to the grid. Many of our projects look like this. The facility’s Renewable Energy Education Facility, an...

Continue reading »

Helping your business to understand climate legislation

Join us for a webinar on upcoming legislation and its implications for your business.

A quick plug: On Tuesday September 29 TerraPass will be hosting a free webinar called Climate change legislation and what it means for your business. It’s open to all (but you need to register in advance) and free. Panelists will include distinguished guests from the Climate Action Registry, ICF and Expedia who will discuss the topic with us. It starts at 2pm Eastern / 11am Pacific. We hope you’ll join us. Register at terrapass.com/webinar....

Continue reading »

The World Carbon Database

A new worldwide database to list carbon offset purchases

There’s a new database in town. The World Carbon Database (WCD) is a non-profit open source site that comprehensively indexes carbon offset purchases. Visitors to the WCD website can look up any individual or company to see if their offset purchase is listed on the site. In partnership with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the WCD’s free service aims to educate the public about the science of climate change and to promote ecologically responsible behavior,...

Continue reading »

New project available for public comment

Flathead project is first landfill gas-to-energy plant in Montana

The next project up for public comment is the Flathead County Landfill gas to energy plant, the first such system in the state of Montana. Located 25 miles from Glacier Park, this project will expand over time to provide 1.6 megawatts of generation capacity. Please have a look and send any questions or comments to projects@terrapass.com....

Continue reading »

Two new projects for your consideration

The Red Hills Wind Farm and Charleston Landfill gas-to-energy project may join our portfolio

We present to your our latest projects for public review. The Red Hills Wind Farm, located in Elk City, Oklahoma, has 82 turbines, with a total capacity of 123 megawatts — enough electricity to power 40,000 homes. The project is the fourth wind farm to be developed in the U.S. by ACCIONA Energy, a global energy company headquartered in Spain. Please check out the Red Hills project information report and send any comments or questions...

Continue reading »

TerraPass offset transparency wins #1 spot

Greenopia says our transparency is unmatched

TerraPass is one of the only offset providers to work directly with its offset projects. This means that the offsets we sell to individuals and businesses haven’t been sourced through a third-party, but from farms and landfill owners with whom we work directly. We do this because we find it’s the only way we can ensure quality: we know the reductions are genuine because we’ve seen the meters measuring them for ourselves. It also provides...

Continue reading »

TerraPass Carbon Balanced Businesses have their say

The results of our survey of businesses that work with TerraPass to reduce and offset their carbon footprints.

With hundreds of businesses now participating in TerraPass’ Carbon Balanced Business (CBB) program, we decided to conduct a survey of this customer base to gauge attitudes and behaviors towards carbon offsetting and other sustainability initiatives across the workplace. Below are some of the results and here’s a handy one-pager summarizing the key findings. Consistent with our previous two annual individual customer surveys, the notion that our customers purchase carbon offsets instead of taking other steps...

Continue reading »

What’s your Earth Day resolution?

Join TerraPassers and millions of others to make your Earth Day resolution

Last year we asked you to sign a card with your Earth Day resolution. This year we’ve jumped on the bandwagon of the twitter craze. We’ve turned over the TerraPass homepage to your (and everybody else’s) Earth Day resolutions and pledges. All in just 140 characters, using the “microblogging” service, twitter. Post your own resolution using a twitter account, or leave yours in the comments below and we’ll post it for you. Let’s show everybody...

Continue reading »

Skiing to the North Pole

TerraPass partners with Forward Expeditions to offset historic North Pole expedition

TerraPass is pleased to partner with Forward Expeditions by providing verified carbon offsets for its Victorinox North Pole ‘09 expedition. These offsets balance out the emissions from all air and car travel, hotel room nights, and meals related to travel prior to the expedition, as well as the fuel used during the expedition itself. Forward Expeditions founders, John Huston and Tyler Fish, began their historic journey on March 2, aiming to become the first Americans...

Continue reading »

TerraPass Joins Business Council on Climate Change

Fighting climate change is our day job, but that doesn’t stop us from doing it in our free time too.

TerraPass recently joined the Business Council on Climate Change (BC3), which is a partnership of Bay Area businesses committed to reducing their impact on climate change. We are looking forward to learning from our fellow members about ways they have advanced climate change and sustainability initiatives in their organizations. BC3 members are committed to the 5 principles on climate leadership: Internal implementation — measuring GHG emissions and setting reduction targets and monitor progress) Community leadership...

Continue reading »

TerraPass becomes first company to list VCS project

New project registry is a milestone for voluntary carbon market

We are pleased to announce that TerraPass is the first carbon offset company to list a project validated under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) in the new APX VCS registry. This gets a bit technical, so let me explain. Since TerraPass was founded in 2004, every carbon offset we’ve sold has been validated using independent, third-party standards to ensure their quality. Those standards have evolved over the years as our industry has grown and matured....

Continue reading »

TerraPass on the spring conference circuit

Our pick of the green conferences in the coming months

At TerraPass we like to minimize our carbon impact and travel budgets, so as the spring conference season approaches, we’re focused on local events with valuable content and a critical mass of thought leaders. Here’s what’s on tap… GreenNet09, San Francisco, March 24 GreenNet is where we show off our technical prowess, highlighting our carbon footprint calculators for both individuals and businesses, and learning more about technical innovation in all things green and clean. Put...

Continue reading »

New project available for public comment

Send us your feedback on the Tri-Community Landfill project

We present to your our latest project for public review. The Tri-Community Landfill, located in Fort Fairfield, Maine, installed an active gas management system in 2008. Captured gas is destroyed in an open flare. Because the landfill is too small and remote to find an end use for the landfill gas, revenue from carbon credits represents the only income source to the project. Please check out our project information report and send any comments or...

Continue reading »

TerraPass offers Green-e RECs to business customers

Wind power helps green companies qualify for LEED certification

Since the launch of TerraPass’ Carbon Balanced Business in January 2008, hundreds of businesses have demonstrated their commitment to the environment by balancing their emissions. The program provides partners with resources to measure their carbon footprint and a portfolio of carbon offset projects that meet the highest standards of quality. Each partner gets a Carbon Balanced Business badge to display, and a dedicated web page on the TerraPass site to discuss their green strategies. Now,...

Continue reading »

Going deep on voluntary carbon markets

Get the scoop on the carbon industry this January

For those who are looking for a couple of days of in-depth commentary and analysis on the voluntary carbon markets, I thought I’d mention that I’ll be speaking at the Voluntary Carbon Markets USA conference on Jan 22nd and 23rd , 2009. Well, I’ll be on a panel speaking about how companies are using carbon offsets. The keynote speaker is Hunter Lovins, a noted author and researcher, and the agenda features notables from all...

Continue reading »

Holiday gift selection now online

Lots of energy-saving and environmentally-friendly gifts are now available at terrapass.com.

Well, it’s not quite Thanksgiving but around TerraPass we’re already seeing people buying gifts for the holidays. So we thought this would be a fine time to introduce our Second! Annual! TerraPass! Holiday Gift Selection. Please check it out. We’ve done our best to put together a range of gift ideas, at a range of price points. As you would expect, we’re mostly interested in gifts that reduce carbon emissions, though this year we’ve...

Continue reading »

Welcome to The TerraPass Footprint

The blog gets a name and a makeover, thanks to votes from you!

Months ago we asked you for suggestions for a new name for the blog. We felt this venerable organ deserved something a bit more distinguished than the appearance of just another corporate blog. And so, today, we’re pleased to present to you “The TerraPass Footprint.” You picked the name yourselves. It was suggested by J. McIntyre of Colombus, Ohio who is now the proud owner of one of our wind-up mp3 players. Hundreds of you...

Continue reading »

Unveiling the TerraPass 2009 project portfolio

New projects and the highest quality, with all the details published online.

This is a big day for us here at TerraPass — we’re unveiling our 2009 carbon offset project portfolio. These are the projects that we support with the proceeds from carbon offset sales on our site and through our partners. The TerraPass Carbon Management Services team will almost certainly add more to the 2009 portfolio as we go, but for now we invite you to take a browse through the list - this year...

Continue reading »

Two new projects for your consideration

One landfill in North Carolina, another in South Dakota.

This week we have two new projects open for public comment. The Robeson County Landfill in St. Pauls, North Carolina, began operating a landfill gas collection and flaring project in July 2008. Robeson County is negotiating with potential end-users who will use the landfill gas for industrial process heat or for electricity generation. In the meantime, the methane is being destroyed in a flare, and revenue from carbon offsets is the only funding the project...

Continue reading »

TerraPass on EDF’s CarbonOffsetList.org

Initiative puts spotlight on high-quality carbon offsets.

We’re pleased to announce that TerraPass is featured on CarbonOffsetList.org, a new initiative from Environmental Defense Fund to highlight quality in the voluntary carbon offset market. EDF has been a longtime champion of using innovative market-based mechanisms to bring about greenhouse gas reductions in a cost-effective manner. And TerraPass has long shared EDF’s philosophy toward identifying great projects: an emphasis on sound methodologies, permanent emissions reductions, and third-party verification. We submitted one of our most...

Continue reading »

More names please!

We’re still looking for name suggestions from you (yes, you) for our blog.

Last week, I told you that we are looking for a new name for our blog. A big “thank you” to everyone who has already submitted a suggestion (an even bigger “THANK YOU” to those who have submitted multiple suggestions). We’ve received over 160 name suggestions in total. But we want more! Submit your new name now, and you could win a Trevor Baylis Eco Media MP3 Player or a TerraPass gift certificate. Already submitted...

Continue reading »

New projects: coast to coast

Projects #16 and #17 are a Washington dairy and a Maryland landfill. Get your comments in!

The TerraPass project team is excited to bring you two more projects for public comment. The New Beulah Landfill methane capture and control project in Dorchester County, MD is a brand new project which isn’t even under construction yet. New Beulah is one of the smallest landfills in Maryland, and TerraPass purchases would help fund the immediate installation of a landfill gas collection system and enclosed flare to destroy the methane. Though engineering estimates predict...

Continue reading »

Survey says: TerraPass customers (still) really do care

People that buy offsets do plenty to reduce their impact on the environment.

For the second year running we asked TerraPass customers to tell us a little more about themselves and what else they do to reduce their environmental impact. The real news here is that little has changed since our first TerraPass customer survey one year ago (for the stats-inclined among you, there was no statistically significant variation): TerraPass customers continue to be a green-minded group who do plenty to help the environment in addition to purchasing...

Continue reading »

New Projects: two more Wisconsin Dairies

Projects #14 and #15 are Wisconsin Dairies that generate clean energy from methane

Digesters like Holsum Elm’s are a part of a broader environmental management program. The TerraPass project team is excited to bring you two more projects for public comment. Both are dairy digesters in the state of Wisconsin. Holsum Elm Dairy is a relatively new dairy and sister dairy to Holsum Irish, a TerraPass project since 2006. Like Holsum Irish, Holsum Elm has a variety of environmentally friendly management practices including an anaerobic digester project...

Continue reading »

TerraPass customers ditch their cars

Congratulations to the TerraPass customers who haven’t renewed because they’ve gone car-free.

Since starting TerraPass, the most frequent question from budding social entrepreneurs has been some variant of “Won’t your success damage your business?” That is, won’t the need for TerraPass diminish as the world lowers its carbon footprint? Well, I am pleased to say that, yes, we’re starting to see the impact. In a recent survey of our customers, we found that 10% opt not to renew because they’ve gotten rid of their cars. Many of...

Continue reading »

New Project: LP Gill Landfill gas-to-energy Project

Our project reviews continue with the lucky 13th project this year.

The TerraPass project team is excited to bring you yet another project for public comment. The L.P. Gill Landfill project is a beneficial use project that captures methane gas from the L.P. Gill Landfill and pipes it to a nearby ethanol plant. The project reduces the amount of methane that would have been released from a rural landfill serving a large part of northeast Nebraska and neighboring states. The methane is destroyed in a thermal...

Continue reading »

TerraPass member wins race with 124 mpg

Jack Martin teaches sustainable transportation. And boy, does he practice what he preaches.

Hypermiling is all about making the gallon of gas go further… a lot further in some cases. All of us at TerraPass offer our congratulations to hypermiler Jack Martin. On June 7, Jack won the 21st Century Automotive Challenge competition by achieving a driving efficiency of 124 miles per gallon over a 143 mile course in his Honda Insight. Yep, 143 miles with just over gallon of gas. (Notice the TerraPass on his prize-winning vehicle.)...

Continue reading »

TerraPass members reach 1 billion pounds offset

I’m happy to announce that TerraPass members have balanced out a total of 1 billion pounds of CO2 emissions! As of June 30, we’re now recording total purchases of just over the 1,000,000,000-pound mark. This includes purchases made directly on the TerraPass web site, as well as purchases made through partnerships with Expedia, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Sam’s Club, and our newest partner, Climate Change Chocolate (yum!). Since Roman times, milestones have been used to assure travelers...

Continue reading »

New project: Hilarides Dairy open for public comment

Let us know what you think of our eleventh project to go through public review.

Our eleventh project is now open for public comment. The Hilarides Dairy, located in Lindsay, CA, powers almost all of its on-site electricity consumption by capturing waste methane that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. Check it out and let us know what you think by emailing us at projects@terrapass.com. The comment period is open until August 8. And a reminder: the comment period on the Green Valley Dairy is open for two more...

Continue reading »

Counting the carbon from your conference

How big is your event’s carbon footprint? Find out with our latest calculator.

We’re excited to announce a new calculator on the TerraPass website — the event and conference carbon calculator. Many of you have been asking for this and we know that it will help individuals and businesses to understand better the impacts of parties, conferences and other events, large or small. We’ve tried to make this calculator simple to use: just a handful of inputs, and you don’t need comprehensive information about your attendees’ travel plans....

Continue reading »

Florida buys U.S. Sugar, returns land to Everglades

Deal compared to creation of America’s first national park.

This has not much to do with climate change, but it’s too interesting not to mention: The dream of a restored Everglades, with water flowing from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, moved a giant step closer to reality on Tuesday when the nation’s largest sugarcane producer agreed to sell all of its assets to the state and go out of business. Florida is paying $1.75 billion for about 300 square miles of land north of...

Continue reading »

New project: Green Valley Dairy up for public comment

We hit double digits with a tenth project open for review.

The TerraPass project team is excited to bring you our tenth project for public comment. The Green Valley Dairy in Wisconsin is using an anaerobic digester to turn farm waste into a renewable source of electricity and heat. Prior to the project, the manure on this farm was stored in open lagoons and seasonally applied to fields as fertilizer. In open lagoons, manure decomposes anaerobically, creating large amounts of methane emissions. By working with TerraPass...

Continue reading »

350.org launches

Group aims to rally a global grassroots movement around an aggressive goal. Plus a cool video!

Last week saw the launch of 350.org, Bill McKibben’s new project to rally a worldwide movement around the goal of rolling back carbon levels in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (they currently stand at about 385 ppm). The project has produced this nifty 90-second video, which summarizes its mission without using any words, so that it remains accessible to all the world’s citizens. Check it out:...

Continue reading »

New alliance sets the bar for high-quality offsets

As Senate defers climate action, voluntary market moves forward.

While Congress struggles to find consensus on the best way to tackle global warming, eight leading carbon offset providers, including TerraPass, are moving ahead with an initiative that could greatly expand the voluntary carbon market. The International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA) is launching today with two U.S. companies, TerraPass and Native Energy; five from the U.K, Climate Care, The Carbon Neutral Company, Carbon Clear, Target Neutral, and CO2 Balance; and an Australian firm,...

Continue reading »

Gas purchases plummet

Rising prices inspire Americans to conserve (finally!)

Gasoline consumption has long proved strangely impervious to shifts in the price of oil. No longer: Gas purchases have taken a massive nosedive: “Demand fell 5.5 percent last week.” Resale value of SUVs has plummeted: “There are far more truck-based SUVs being traded in than customers to buy them.” Prius sales are setting new records: “Toyota has sold more Prius cars in the first quarter of 2008 than all other major manufacturers have sold hybrids...

Continue reading »

Choose your own project type

TerraPass now lets you mix your own portfolio of carbon offsets.

Over the weekend, we rolled out the first version of a feature that lets you create a custom portfolio of offsets from project types of your choosing. Now when you purchase an offset from TerraPass, you can help direct our efforts to project types you like the most. When you calculate your footprint and add an offset product to your shopping cart, just click the “change my portfolio” link and mix and match in 1,000...

Continue reading »

Ninth project enters comment period

Comment on our newest project: Upper Rock Island turns waste methane into clean energy.

Four months ago, TerraPass became the first (and is still the only) carbon offset provider to invite the public to review projects before they are included in our portfolio. Now we offer up our ninth project for consideration, the Upper Rock Island County Landfill Gas to Energy facility. This 3.95-megawatt gas-to-energy project at the landfill that serves communities in Rock Island County, Illinois reduces the amount of greenhouse gas (methane) that would otherwise be released...

Continue reading »

‘Drive less’ update

I found the stat I was looking for about the effect of conservation on gas prices. Courtesy of Geoffrey Styles: If we all drove just 12 miles less per week, fuel demand would fall by 5%, the equivalent of almost half a million barrels per day, or all the ethanol produced last year. The impact of that on gas prices would be much more dramatic than waiting for someone else to fix the problem. The...

Continue reading »

Low carbon flights on the internet

TerraPass helps you find air travel that’s lean and green(er).

If you travel a lot, you’re probably used to visiting airline web sites and being asked whether you want to see your flights sorted by price or schedule. How would you like to sort by carbon? Until recently, only experts in aviation emissions could track down this information. But now the public can find comparative data using TerraPass’ new aviation calculator. The results can help you choose the flight with the lowest climate impact. Here’s...

Continue reading »

It’s official: our flight calculator rocks

Enter your airline, seat class, and number of stopovers for most detailed carbon footprint yet.

We pre-announced this a few weeks ago, but now you can see for yourself: the new TerraPass flight calculator gives you the most personalized carbon footprint information available, using data provided by TRX that takes into account not just your route, but also your airline and even your seat class. Check it out. It’s surprising some of the disparities you uncover when you have data like this at your fingertips: Marvel at how Delta is...

Continue reading »

National bike month! National bike month!

A simple, inspiring — and real-world — vision for greener transportation.

It’s national bike month, don’t you know. Get ready for tons and tons of bike blogging! There’s nothing more powerful than the so-called demonstration effect, which is why I continue to be so enamored with the Copenhagen Bicycle Culture Blog, a site that tirelessly and cheerfully celebrates the seemingly trivial aspects of mass bicycle culture in Denmark. Hopefully the pictures below will put a smile on your face. If they do, go read Alex Steffen’s...

Continue reading »

Flying high: TRX and TerraPass

TerraPass will soon be working with the best air travel carbon data in the troposphere.

In a report released today [pdf] by the highly influential Stockholm Environmental Institute, TRX has been named as having “likely the best currently available air travel CO2 emissions calculator.” That’s no faint praise given the number of carbon calculators available on the web. We’re very excited about the release of this report and the praise for TRX, because we’ve recently agreed to a limited exclusive deal with them to use the data in the...

Continue reading »

TerraPass is now on board with Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Inc. Magazine has the scoop on TerraPass’ latest partnership, an agreement with Enterprise that will allow customers to purchase a carbon offset to balance their rental car driving. From the article’s lede: Enterprise has been toying with the idea of offering carbon offsets for a couple of years. Now, with all of its questions answered, the decision has been made…As they sign on the dotted line, a beaming Tom Arnold, TerraPass’ chief environmental officer,...

Continue reading »

TerraPass launches partnership with Expedia to bring carbon balanced flight to all travelers

Big news, people: Expedia and TerraPass have partnered in a program to offer Flight TerraPasses to travelers when they buy plane tickets. Although the travel industry has undertaken limited experiments with this kind of offering before, this is the first program of its size and scope to offer measured, verified greenhouse gas reductions to all travelers. Expedia will offer TerraPass to every U.S. traveler who buys a plane ticket through their web site. This is...

Continue reading »

A TerraPass and industry first: presenting our 2004-2005 verification report

We’re proud to release our 2004/2005 Verification report (pdf). Based on an agreement with Center for Resource Solutions (CRS), creator of the Green-e program, this report details our impact for the year, the sales-supply balance and our distribution of offset projects. The good news, in case you’re wondering, is that we passed! As we have discussed, accountability in carbon offsets is a crucial issue. We view verification as a crucial part of our promise to...

Continue reading »

Ford Motor Company and TerraPass announce Greener Miles partnership

The news just broke over Reuters. Ford Motor Company and TerraPass have a joined in a partnership to market TerraPass-branded carbon offsets to all drivers of Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury cars and trucks. We’re calling the joint marketing program Greener Miles. You can read the Reuters scoop here, or get the official version put out by Ford’s friendly and capable PR people (when formally announced). I’m sure dozens of other versions will appear over the...

Continue reading »