FAQs
- How does carbon offset tackle climate change?
- What makes Clear different?
- How do we know that we actually get what we pay for?
- Why don't you plant trees to stop climate change?
- Why are you more expensive than other offsetters?
- I don't live in the UK, can I still use the site?
- What percentage of the price actually goes towards reducing emissions?
- Why are you not a charity?
- How do you calculate how much CO2 I produce?
1. How does carbon offset tackle climate change?
Carbon offset should never be the first response to climate change. We all have a responsibility to measure our carbon footprint and reduce it as best we can. However this will always leave us with some kind of footprint. That's why offsetting plays a vital role.
After reducing your carbon footprint to a sensible level, carbon offsetting creates funding for projects which reduce emissions even further elsewhere. Because emissions disperse throughout the atmosphere, your net carbon footprint becomes smaller even if the offset happens somewhere else.
Clear offsets through carbon reduction projects in the developing world for three reasons. Firstly it help those who are least able to help themselves. Secondly it achieves the most reduction for the money you spend. And lastly it is the scheme created for and chosen by almost every government in the world under the Kyoto Protocol.
2. What makes Clear different?
Clear uses the most accurate carbon calculators available on the web, and our our offsets are the highest quality available (CERs). They are fully compliant with the upcoming Quality Assured Offsetting Scheme to be released by the UK Government shortly.
Clear is extremely efficient, spending more than 80% of its income purely on CERs. We have no wage bill, and our overheads have been minimised carefully.
Our website offers unusual features, like multiple flight input, choice of radiative factor, and the ability to store your own information and create your own carbon footprint webpage.
We are the only offset company to offer offsets for motorcycles, scooters, commuting and skydiving.
Customers in the UK also get a free branded gift when they offset, such as a windscreen disc or a chunky fridge magent.
3. How do we know that we actually get what we pay for?
Clear offsets your emissions through Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) verified by the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism. These are retired through the UK Emissions Registry within 12 months which prevents them from being resold or double-counted. We buy in bulk to get a good price, and pass that discount on to our customers.
Once the Quality Assured Offsetting Scheme is in place (current estimate 1 Oct 08), we plan to be the first to be audited under their stringent regulations.
4. Why don't you plant trees to stop climate change?
Planting trees may be a nice thing to do, but it isn't a good way to offset carbon. In fact Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund issued a joint statement in 2006 pointing this out. Trees do absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, but it takes decades for offsets to happen, and if the tree dies and rots, or worse is burnt, the same amount of CO2 is released straight back into the atmosphere.
5. Why are you more expensive than some other offsetters?
Actually, we're not. Many offset companies use lower grade carbon offsets called VERs. They are subject to a bewildering array of different standards with a variety of shortcomings. For example, many are not independently audited, or use trees (not a good idea). VERs are cheaper, but they don't measure up to the standards proposed by the Government Quality Assured Offsetting Scheme.
Clear is one of the very cheapest carbon offsetters for CERs. We achieve this by continuously striving to reduce our overheads to maximise our efficiency. So actually we're not expensive, we represent very good value.
6. I don't live in the UK, can I still use the site?
Yes! Simply change the currency to your own country (look for your flag at the bottom of the page) and use the site normally. Currently we are only able to post free gifts to our customers in the UK, but all customers offsetting their flights will get a pdf certificate by email.
7. What percentage of the price actually goes towards reducing emissions?
We run our business in an innovative way to keep our overheads to an absolute minimum. For example, we have no wage bill! However there are always some costs involved such as the commission taken by Paypal and the costs associated with running our servers. This will allow us to spend in excess of 80% of our income purely on buying offsets, and we hope to improve that even further as the company grows.
8. Why are you not a charity?
Because we are not asking our customers to donate to a worthwhile cause. We do not believe that charitable status would make us either more efficient or more accountable, which is ultimately what we strive for.
Instead Clear is structured as a private company. We believe that this is the best way to deliver a cost-effective, high-quality service, exert the greatest influence, and ultimately deliver the most sustainable response to climate change.
9. How do you calculate how much CO2 I produce?
The calculation engines on the website are based on the most up-to-date understanding of carbon dioxide emissions possible, meeting and even surpassing the factors used by the UK Government and DEFRA for their Quality Assured Offsetting Scheme. We have developed highly accurate mathematical tools and broken down your footprint into the contribution made from each source, so you can see what's really going on. More detail is available below for the enthusiasts.
Cars: Most cars manufactured in the last six years are already in our database, but we also thought it was important to be able to calculate older cars too, so Clear has built a proprietary regression model based on almost 6000 different vehicles to calculate what any older or non-listed vehicle should produce in terms of CO2.
Motorbikes: Motorbikes are not yet subject to CO2 emissions measurement, so Clear built a proprietary engine to calculate carbon footprints. Based on owner reported fuel consumption figures from over 260 different models of motorbikes, it is then converted into the regression model which powers the calculations on the site.
Commuting: This is another Clear first. We have taken TfL (Transport for London) reported figures for CO2 emissions and calculated average speeds for different modes of transport. Its often difficult to know how far you have traveled when you are on the tube for example, so we have used length of journey for greater ease of use and accuracy.
Flights: Using fuel consumption data developed from DLR (Germany's national research centre for aeronautics and space) on the Airbus 340 we have created a model which calculates how much carbon dioxide each person on an average flight is responsible for.
Homes and buildings: We have used the recently published DEFRA figures for the levels of CO2 produced in the creation and transmission of the various sources of energy in our homes.
Skydiving: Clear has recorded the fuel consumption for 3 typical types of planes used by skydive dropzones. The average fuel burn per trip on AVGAS (100 octane fuel) was recorded, with the jumper capacity, and an estimation of the average fill. Clear then applies the AVGAS carbon conversion factor provided by DEFRA to calculate the CO2 per jumper. The average figure of 21kg / jump for totally full planes was used, and an assumed average 90% fill rate to gives a “real” CO2 per jumper of 23.3kg. Clear would like to acknowledge the help of Steve Baker in creating this calculator.
Business Audit Tool: This tool uses DEFRA approved carbon conversion factors where possible. In the case that DEFRA have not released a recommended factor, we have used the best commonly acknowledged one.
