UPS - carbon neutral

ArcticFox

http://www.ups.com/carbonneutral

"Try UPS carbon neutral free April 19-23

To honor Earth Day, when you use UPS Internet Shipping, add the carbon neutral option and we'll waive the fee.* Take this small step and join with other UPS customers to reduce climate impact"

 

SuperGreen

I'm glad UPS is doing this, it's a step in the right direction, but the whole idea of carbon offsets just bothers me.  A company that is using massive amounts of fossil fuels to transport goods all over the world cannot simply erase that impact by buying offsets.  The offset is hypothetically a forest that's absorbing all that C02 somewhere in the world, but planes emit CO2 in the atmosphere far above the layer of air that trees interact with, so that's a moot point.  Plus, those forests are getting counted as the "offset" for countless companies, and I seriously doubt those companies are tallying their CO2 impact, and seeing if their offset forest actually absorbs that much CO2.  And if it does, in what timeframe?  A forest absorbing a day's worth of CO2 emissions over the course of several weeks/months/years, is not an "offset."  Offsets are just another way for companies to throw some money at a problem to have positive PR, and not actually change their behavior.

Alisha_A

Oh shoot... way too busy and way too late for me to figure out if there's a way to take advantage of this with our warehouse! Boo.

Jen&Joe06

SuperGreen:

I'm glad UPS is doing this, it's a step in the right direction, but the whole idea of carbon offsets just bothers me.  A company that is using massive amounts of fossil fuels to transport goods all over the world cannot simply erase that impact by buying offsets.  The offset is hypothetically a forest that's absorbing all that C02 somewhere in the world, but planes emit CO2 in the atmosphere far above the layer of air that trees interact with, so that's a moot point.  Plus, those forests are getting counted as the "offset" for countless companies, and I seriously doubt those companies are tallying their CO2 impact, and seeing if their offset forest actually absorbs that much CO2.  And if it does, in what timeframe?  A forest absorbing a day's worth of CO2 emissions over the course of several weeks/months/years, is not an "offset."  Offsets are just another way for companies to throw some money at a problem to have positive PR, and not actually change their behavior.

It is better than doing nothing though isn't it? 

And it is not like people are going to stop needing to ship stuff around the world (individuals and companies) so why not do something positive about it?

Plus they have some pretty substantial information on their website about their offset program, what it is doing, who it has been verified by and what it has been verified for.