Last updated on 21 December 2023

How to reduce your GHG footprint¹

So, you want to save the world by reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions?  How about starting with yourself² and your family!

A. Things you can do NOW at low cost

A1   Change what you eat and drink

Some foods and beverages have very large carbon footprints.  By reducing consumption of products that are the cause of land clearing and emission of methane and other GHGs, you can minimize your diet related footprint.  For example:

1. Drop animal products, especially red meat.  Ruminating animals of all kinds belch large amounts of methane and require large land area for their feed³. Moreover, much of the burning of forests in South America (Brazil, Columbia and elsewhere) is to clear land for cattle grazing. Buying their products only encourages the practice. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up tasty food and there are many great tasting options⁴.

2. Don't buy food containing palm oil that is not responsibly sourced. The extensive burning of forests in Indonesia is largely to clear land for palm farms and palm oil is in very many foods.  Unless you know that the oil has been responsibly sourced, just say NO!

3. Where possible, buy locally produced food.  The carbon footprint of food being shipped (especially by air) from California, South America or South Africa to the east coast for example, is very significant if it is a regular portion of your diet.

4. Take the milk out of your latte!  The carbon footprint of a simple cup of coffee is about 60 grams of CO2, but this significantly increases for beverages like cappuccinos and lattes that contain milk (see: http://co2.probat.com).  Switching to soy, oat or almond milk, greatly reduces this footprint (see: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks).

5. Where possible, don't buy food in disposable containers!  Consider bringing washable mesh bags or containers to the store for produce and simply don't buy prepackaged goods. This is especially true with plastic clamshell boxes labeled as type '1' as these are difficult to recycle and typically end up in a landfill.  Curiously, even communities that claim to recycle them (such as Raleigh, NC) pass them on to a contractor that then often disposes of them! Disposal has simply been passed from the city to their contracted recycling handler.

A2  Change how you travel

1. The most efficient trip is the one that you don't make!  Do a conference or video call instead of going in person. Or, let's say you are out of milk.  (Well, from a GHG standpoint you probably shouldn't be drinking that anyway⁵ so let's say it's something else.) Rather than immediately going to the store, figure out how to go without it until the next time another trip goes near a store.  (Country folks know all about this when the nearest store is far away but city dwellers often make trips for one item.)

2. Include the carbon footprint of your travel into travel decisions. If by air is there a direct route (although possibly more expensive) and is there a practical alternative (train, bus, shared vehicle etc.) although it may take more travel time?  Also, can you travel in coach instead of business or first class?  (This may not be relevant, however, if open seats are still available in more comfortable classes when boarding is complete.)

3. Slow down!  If driving, do you really need to take the highway?  How about leaving a few minutes earlier and taking a route that will let you drive at a more efficient speed?  All vehicles suffer from reduced fuel efficiency above their optimal speeds and the most efficient speed is usually less than 50 MPH! A calculator from the U.S. Dept. of Energy is available to show you how quickly your efficiency degrades with speed:

   https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp

   For the case of a Nissan Leaf, the energy required per mile actually doubles going from 50 MPH to 75 MPH!  Of course, this also reduces your range and that can be very problematic in cold weather⁶.

4. Share the use of vehicles so that your carbon footprint is minimized.  If one car is less efficient then use it only as totally necessary and, if possible, for the shortest trip.  (No his and her cars.) Our household has gone from about 12k total miles per year with 2 gas vehicles to about 10k miles per year with an EV and < 2k miles per year with a hybrid car.  Gas has been reduced from over 500 gallons (that resulted in at least 10000 lb of CO2) to about 60 gallons in the newer hybrid (or 1200lb or CO2) and about  2.2 MW-hr of electricity for the EV.  At our utility's carbon intensity of .7lb/kwh (Duke Energy Carolinas) that means use of the EV has resulted in about 1500lb of CO2 per year.  Hence, we've reduced our CO2 emissions by 7300lb per year for car transport!  (10000-1200-1500)

5. Make certain that your tires are properly inflated.  Tires contribute a significant percentage of the drag on your car as they are constantly being deformed as they rotate.  You can minimize this drag for all tire types by keeping your tires properly inflated.  Higher pressures generally have lower drag but will also transfer bumps more efficiently to the car.  In any event, stay within the recommended tire pressure range and don’t ignore any low pressure warnings!  

6. Maintain your vehicle!  Simple maintenance problems with injectors or vacuum air leaks can seriously affect your efficiency.  You can also tune or make small modifications to many cars to actually improve efficiency⁷ although peak performance may suffer.

7. Combine and organize trips to stores etc. so as to minimize total mileage and number of trips.  (Sometimes it works and other times not.)

8. If you have an EV or plug-in-hybrid, charge them when your utility's generation is least carbon intensive. For example, in NC where Duke Energy is the main electric provider, their base load generation is usually provided by nuclear plants unless one of them is being serviced.  Hence if you charge during low demand periods (typically at night unless it is very cold) you are literally nuclear powered!  

9. When you are traveling turn your thermostats down in winter and up in summer to whatever your houseplants can reasonably stand.  We drop to about 62 and raise to 84 or so respectively having lost house plants beyond that.  Of course, the presence of pets or support animals may dictate that you not adjust the thermostat.

10. If you'll be gone more than a few days turn OFF your water heater.  You can save energy, (up to to ~5 kwh/day depending upon the heater) because the heater will periodically cycle itself on to keep the water warm.  Gas heaters may be more problematic and if cycling them isn't trivial and safe it isn't worth it.  You should also consider turning OFF any beverage refrigerators that are not used to keep food fresh.  Most small refrigerators are notoriously inefficient.

11. Consider buying carbon offsets for travel related emissions.  For your vehicles, record or estimate how many gallons of gas or kwh of electricity you use over the course of a month or year and periodically purchase related offsets or RECs as detailed in section C.

A3   Optimize appliances

Understand what your appliances draw and optimize power or GHG emissions.  

1. Turn off what you don't need.  A typical power hog is dehumidifiers (800+Watts, even for portables) and stand alone freezers.  Don't use them when you don't really need them!  Others are PCs and laptops.  (Suspend them or turn them off.)

2. Adjust your HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) to minimize emissions.  If you have an air source heat-pump, optimize where it switches to backup heat in order to minimize total CO2 emissions.  All air source heat pumps become less efficient at low outside temperatures and eventually switch to a backup unit at low temperatures. Resistive heating strips are commonly used but gas or propane backup furnaces are also an option.  The switch over temperature is typically set within the thermostat that likely has a default of around 40 degrees F.  Some heat-pumps will continue to operate efficiently, however, at lower temperatures. This is usually described by the Coefficient of Performance or COP vs. temperature graph that inevitably declines with outside temperature but is still more efficient than resistive strip heating if it is greater than 1. The coldest set-point to consider would be the temperature where the CO2 emissions for the primary and backup systems are about the same per unit of heating, or where the heat pump COP approaches 1 for the resistive backup strip case. You will need to increase the transition temperature higher than this though as your heat pump’s total heating capacity also declines with temperature and will eventually be insufficient to warm your home or business.  (It will be continuously running or running more than you would like.) Our compromise here has been setting the transition temperature to 25 degrees.

   HVAC service people don’t usually offer to do this adjustment but should be able to do it if requested at your annual service visit. You’ll want to make sure that your heat pump is a candidate for this though by consulting the COP vs. temperature graph for your unit. It is generally straightforward for the homeowner to make this adjustment but make sure to consult your HVAC and thermostat manuals and consult with a professional if you have any doubts or concerns about the procedure.

3. Help your utility to perform Demand Side Management.  Some utilities offer savings to customers if you allow them to temporarily change your power load during times of peak demand.  This is usually done by allowing the utility to briefly disable your air-conditioning or hot water heater via electrical devices that are added at your home. If you have one or more smart thermostats that can be remotely adjusted by the utility, (allowing them to briefly increase your setpoint during the summer or drop your setpoint during the winter) they can also be used to reduce your peak load (and hence the size of their required generation) and without adding any hardware.  Power peaking plants using natural gas or even coal are frequently used during times of heavy power load and may greatly increase the utility’s carbon intensity when they are running.  A similar demand management scheme can also be employed to electric cars, where the time of car charging may be adjusted by the utility. See if your utility offers these services and if they don’t, ask them why not?! These are very simple and reliable options for reducing peak utility demand.  

4. Tame your pool and spa.  Not everyone has a swimming pool or spa but both tend to be serious power hogs.  Many residential swimming pools have constant speed pumps that on average may actually use more energy than the entire house.  In many cases, the pump can be programmed or put on a timer so that it is off for part of the day and probably used even less frequently when the pool is not being actively used.  If the speed is programmable, turn the speed down to only what is necessary to keep the pool clean.  Spas use a lot of power for their heating elements and can at least be turned down when they won’t be used for a day or two.  A simple bubble wrap sheet over the water will also help retain heat and an insulated hard cover will further help reduce energy.

A4   Change how you shop

1. Minimize what you buy!  If you don’t buy it, you won’t need to recycle it!

2. Buy locally or regionally manufactured goods if possible.  This at least reduces the footprint of shipping and ideally the goods are also made from raw material sourced near the manufacturer.  If in doubt, query the manufacturer.

3. Don’t request express delivery and try to coordinate orders to minimize the total number of deliveries.  The carbon footprint of even small products can increase tremendously if it has to be shipped from afar by air or if a heavy delivery vehicle has to make a special trip for it to be delivered.  Moreover, the packaging required for the safe shipment of nearly anything consumes even more resources and often results in plastic going to landfills.  

4. Don’t buy prepackaged goods if bulk options are available.  Bring your own mesh bags for buying fresh produce if possible and leave behind the food in shrink-wrapped or nonrecyclable plastic.  Similarly, with grains, dried fruit, nuts and coffee; bring your own jars or bottles to stores that offer bulk food items and in most cases the retailers will be happy to weigh your empty bottles and jars and subtract off that weight when you check out.

5. Buy second hand items where it is feasible to do so.  The energy required to manufacture something new and ship it to where you are, is of course, much higher than that required to move it from the original owner to the new owner, especially if they are near each other.  (Local consignment stores.) Do you really need to use new lumber for that new bookshelf or can you use repurposed material from a ReStore store or even your own scrap wood collection?

A5 Change how you dispose of items

1. Compost or send discarded food to a farm!  Composting at home creates CO2 but reduces resulting methane from landfills and the energy required to haul food waste there.  In some cases, hog farmers may be happy to take your leftovers!  Worth considering for especially large events where the amount of food is worth the cost and emissions of transportation.

2. Collect used cooking oil and with permission add it to the supply of a local restaurant.  Many restaurants are paid for their used cooking oil that is typically used to make biofuels.  Everybody wins as the oil doesn’t clog a drain or require waste water treatment, the restaurant will receive at least some revenue and biofuel will be made without increasing the local demand for corn, beans or other food stuffs.  

3. Donate or offer items of potential value for free.   Many charities are delighted to receive usable old clothing but you may have luck as well with local scrap exchanges, neighborhood lists or even Craiglist for non-clothing items.  

4. Aggressively recycle.  Just because your community recycling program doesn’t take something doesn’t mean it can’t be recycled or put to an alternate use.  Craft programs may be willing to take your large pieces of Styrofoam, bottle corks and leftover yarn.  Used building materials may also be spared a trip to the landfill via organizations such as Restore that might be able to put your old window to good use.

A6 Change how you use your computer and phone

Use of any computing or communication resource takes power and much of it may not be observable to you as it is being paid for by your service providers. Indeed, some estimates have computing and cloud based resources consuming fully 11% of global energy by 2030⁸!

1. Use a Green search engine, web host and email providers.  By various accounts, a single search on the web ultimately consumes the same amount of energy as a 60 Watt bulb burning for from 5 to 20 minutes! The same is said to be the case with web services and email where video and messages with long attachments are the most power hungry. Do you really need to do the search, have streaming video frames and send the long attachment?  If so, has the company behind your search engine, web hosting and mailer attempted to offset their carbon signature by buying renewable energy or planting trees? Some do!  Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have all installed at least some solar and wind facilities to offset their power usage.  There is also a company that can be used as a search front-end that allegedly plants trees based upon search revenue and can be used in front of any search engine⁹.  Note, however, that all search engines derive revenue from selling what you are looking for to others!

   There are also various tools on the web that can look up how ‘green’ your web servers are based upon data provided by hosting companies¹⁰ and even estimate how much CO2 is likely emitted to pull down specific web pages¹¹.  This information is only advisory, however, and it is prudent to try and do your own homework regarding your potential service providers. 

2. Design your web pages to be energy efficient to view. There is much that can be done in how a web site is constructed that will minimize the energy required for a user to find it and view it¹². This means making it easy to find in a search engine but also minimizing the computations required to create the page whenever it is viewed and the amount of data required to deliver it. Regretfully, common hosting platforms often create the web pages on the fly, even if it is the same exact web page viewed many times previously. Embedded videos are also problematic as they entail transmission of a great deal of data. Simplicity and efficiency is key; if an image or video doesn’t substantially improve information delivery, don’t include it!

3. Block tracking to actually save energy.  Most web pages include activity tracking links that both track you personally and send information to other servers about what you are doing.  Some pages send your information to over 100 sites!  This clearly takes energy and bandwidth beyond what is required for your using the web.  Suggest enabling 'Do Not Track' in your browser and using plug-ins that largely disable your browser’s transmission to third parties of your  activity.  Disconnect is one such extension for Firefox and Firefox itself includes many privacy settings that can reduce tracking bandwidth.  The non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation also offers free privacy tools, some of which reduce tracking related bandwidth¹³.  

4. Be selective of what goes in the cloud.  Storing data in the cloud means that somewhere an array of disks is up and running 24/7 that is constantly available to you. Usually your data will be spread across multiple disks so that failures of 1 or 2 drives will not result in loss of your data.  (Known as a Redundant Array of Independent Disks or RAID.) Moreover, probably a dozen or more routers and switches are constantly up and running between the array of disks with your data and you¹⁴. This infrastructure is up and burning power even if the data is not being accessed although the power consumed does go up if data is being transferred and may even exceed that required for running the disks¹⁵.  An attempt at addressing this problem is to have some local storage so as to minimize the data that has to be transferred. This is often known as a hybrid cloud.  Both methods clearly take more energy than occasionally using the thumb drive in your desk drawer!  Has your cloud provider attempted to minimize their power and use renewable energy or offset their carbon? (Many have not so consider using a green provider as discussed above.) Similarly, if you have a choice of ISPs, are they concerned about their carbon footprint? A very few are.  Generally, the shorter the route is to the cloud hardware the quicker the data transmission will be and the less power will probably be dissipated in moving the data between the cloud and you. A distant green provider (powered by 24/7 hydroelectric power for example) may still be a greener solution though if not much data is passed between the cloud server and you.

5. Use compiler based programming languages for repetitive tasks.   Program languages that use interpretters consume much more energy than compiled languages in most applications. Within both categories of languages, some are more power and memory efficient than others.   See: https://greenlab.di.uminho.pt/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/paperSLE.pdf

6. Use a power efficient computer.  Have you considered the power that your computer uses - both when you are using it and when you are not? Many towers require over 100 Watts to operate and may even consume 5 Watts in suspend.  Laptops generally consume much less power as the designers have attempted to maximize battery life and smartphones consume even less.  Use what you need but not more than you need and don’t leave it in a high power state when you are done!

7. Minimize cellular data. Data transmitted between phones and laptops and cellular systems consume far more power per unit of data than WiFi or wired networks. As such, use nearby WiFi or wired networks to transmit large amounts of data if you wish to minimize the carbon footprint of your work. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) can be used to enable improved security on even unsecured public networks.

8. Don’t use crypto-currency.  Do you use a crypto-currency like Bitcoin to buy goods on the web? Please DON'T! These 'currencies' are mined (or created) using banks of power hungry computing resources that solve ever more complicated problems.  Commercial miners then sell the created currency to people wishing to use them in commerce and to investors.  These miners usually buy power from where it is least expensive and is typically generated by burning coal!  See: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption.

   On average, the power required for mining bitcoins is doubling every 6 months and currently takes more energy than all of Switzerland! It is growing far faster than worldwide renewable energy sources. No idea why eco groups and governments are not screaming about this!

9. Don’t print more than necessary! Paper is created from wood pulp that is both renewable and recyclable but does take energy to create¹⁶ and paper production is still mainly from forests and not tree farms¹⁷. Moreover, whenever it does make it into a landfill, it decomposes quickly into largely methane, a green house gas even more destructive than CO2. By one estimate¹⁸, it takes fully 20 Watt-hours to produce a single sheet of paper. Using the earlier 60 Watt light bulb analogy, the light burns for 20 minutes just to equal the energy used in making one sheet of paper! This document, then would require about 240 Watt-hours to be printed! About the same energy to drive 1 mile in an EV. In contrast, downloading it to your phone takes only about .12 Watt-hour or 2000 times less energy!

A7 Other small changes that can make a big difference

1. Hang-up your clothes to dry instead of using a clothes dryer. This may not always be possible due to weather or time constraints but it saves a lot of energy. Electric clothes dryers take up to 6kW of power and that may even be the case for low power settings! (The power ratings are usually inside near the door.) Our unit is rated at 240V, 24A and measures out at almost exactly 6kW. Although lower temperature settings will generally switch the heating element on and off, an hours worth of drying time at this power level uses as much energy as driving an EV for 25-30 miles!

B. Things to invest in that will reduce your GHG footprint

B1. Improve your home and office

1. Winterize! An energy audit with a door blower test and/or infrared image of the house when it is cold should be useful for identifying problems to fix. Many utilities will help you with a simple and free energy audit including Duke Energy.  (See: https://www.duke-energy.com/home/products/home-energy-house-call to sign up).  If you have a ventilated crawlspace instead of a basement, you can also seal the crawlspace.  This essentially adds a vapor barrier between the crawlspace and the ground, adds insulation around the periphery of the crawlspace and seals the existing outside vents.  Output vents from the existing HVAC system should also be added into the sealed crawlspace. This makes the crawlspace a conditioned space although the often claimed 10% energy savings is reduced by the need to typically put a dehumidifier in the crawl space.  (Ours only runs for a few hours a day in summer but does take some energy.) The sealed crawl also makes for a cleaner house.  Make certain the installer uses code approved material, however, especially in the insulation covering the walls of the crawlspace.  Caulking air leaks around doors, windows and between floors can often be done by the homeowner but be sure to use fire resistant caulk or foam for air leaks between floors or between a garage and a living area.

2. Make your lighting more efficient.  LED lights are often inexpensive and some bulbs are even free from utilities such as Duke Energy. Replacement LEDs are available for many bulb sizes although some fixtures with nonstandard bulbs may need to be replaced. Make sure any replacement LEDs are dimmer capable though if they are to be used on a circuit with a dimmer.

3. Upgrade your HVAC to a more efficient unit.  If you have a unit that is more than 10 years old it is likely that a more efficient unit is now available at a reasonable cost.  You may also want to consider upgrading to a unit with probably much greater efficiency such as a ground source heat pump or a mini-split.  The concept of a ground source heat pump is that the ground is actually a pretty good thermal source compared to the air and doesn’t change much in temperature throughout the year.  This makes a heat pump usually much more efficient than a comparable air source unit, especially at low outdoor temperatures.  In comparison, a mini split usually has ductless individual evaporator units in each room that then may share one or more compressor/condenser units outside.  Some also offer a variable thermal pumping rate.  Both methods should result in significantly lower utility bills and related emissions but are both relatively expensive to install.  

   Another option you could consider would be altering or adding a fuel type if you are replacing your HVAC.  In choosing between fuel sources such as natural gas (if available), propane or electric for heating, consider the carbon intensity of your electric utility in making buying decisions.  The optimal solution for minimizing emissions may be a mix of fuels.  For example, an electric air source heat pump used for AC and heating when it isn't very cold and a gas or propane back-up furnace for when it is very cold.  This usually results in less carbon emissions than using a resistive heater as a source of backup heat unless your electric utility has a very low carbon intensity.

4. Consider a more efficient water heater.

   1. Tankless water heaters. Water heaters having a storage tank invariably cool off by leaking their heat to the environment. Even Energy Star rated heaters with excellent insulation usually have to heat the water in the tank back up at least once a day. These losses can be avoided by heating the water when you need it with an inline water heater that doesn’t have a storage tank¹⁹. These heaters use very high power, however, and usually require additional wiring in your home or business to accommodate the 50+A, 240V lines going from the breaker box to the heater. These are probably worth considering, however, if the placement of your hot water line is reasonably close to the breaker box and both are accessible.

   2. Heat-pump water heaters. If you have enough vertical space for a tall water heater, units employing a heat pump to warm the water can provide an efficiency advantage of as much as 4 to 1 over a water heater employing resistive heating. Besides for being tall, the units are also relative expensive. The radiator at the top of these units gets cold as a result of the water heating and as a consequence will cool the space containing the water heater when its compressor is running unless air near the radiator is ducted to the outside.

B2.  Upgrade your Vehicle

1. Purchase or lease an EV, hybrid or more efficient vehicle.  The price of new EV or plug-in vehicles can in many cases be reduced by federal or state tax credits and a few electric utility companies are even willing to help with rebates on EVs.  Note, however, that federal tax credits only apply to purchased vehicles and must be taken and used in the year purchased. If leased, however, the lessor, may be entitled to and willing to take the credit and then pass along some of the savings to the lessee.  Some states also offer credits for purchased or leased EV and hybrid vehicles.  Suggest reading the relevant tax law or consulting a tax advisor, however, rather than simply believing what the car dealer tells you about possible tax credits.

   On the topic of money, it is interesting to compare operating costs for an EV with that of an internal combustion engine (ICE) powered car.  Our family is averaging about 4.5 miles/kwh in our EV (Nissan Leaf) although most driving is admittedly around town and not often on the highway.  Duke Energy charges us less than $.11/kwh so our fuel cost per mile is about $.024/mile.  Assuming that gasoline costs about $2.40/gallon, our fuel cost for the EV is comparable to that of a 100 mpg vehicle!  Also, there are no oil or transmission fluid changes to worry about although tire rotations and brake fluid replacements are still necessary.  Because of regenerative braking, brake shoes should also last a long time unless you frequently jam on the brakes.  Because of the many fewer moving parts in an EV it should have reduced maintenance costs than an ICE auto although battery degradation is a valid concern and likely varies with the model of EV.  I estimate that we’ve lost about 15% range on our 2013 60k mile Leaf.  Data pertaining to earlier Tesla vehicles indicates that about 10% in range degradation occurs after 160k miles.  See: https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-data/ .

2. Use low rolling resistance tires.  Tires are continually being deformed in the process of turning and this requires energy to keep them turning.  By most accounts this contributes 20% or more to the overall drag of the car.  The Nissan Leaf comes from the factory with what are considered low rolling resistance tires (Bridgestone Ecopia 422) although in our experience they wear out after only about 30k miles even with proper care.  The later Ecopia 422 Plus is claimed to have better wear and even lower rolling resistance but the Nissan dealer was not willing to install them or even honor the manufacturer’s warranty on the original tires.  Low rolling resistance tires may also have poorer performance on snow or wet surfaces so you should do your homework before buying new tires.  Consumer Reports includes rolling resistance values for its tire reviews and may be worth consulting.

B3. Plant some Trees.

1. Planting trees if you have space or buying a few acres of trees of cleared land where you could plant trees will sequester a lot of carbon. A ton or more of CO2 per acre per year for mature forests is often cited depending upon the types of trees. A handy guide is available from the Dept. of Energy to estimate the carbon sequestered in many tree types of different ages²⁰. Numerous online tools are available to estimate sequestered carbon in tree stands including; a simple online tree carbon calculator available from NC State University²¹ where the carbon estimate is based upon the easily measurable circumference of the tree, and a suite of management and estimating tools based upon USDA Forest Service research²².

B4. Be your own Power Generator

1. Invest in solar or wind.  It can be used to offset some or all of your electric use and potentially provide a backup power source.  The solar photovoltaic array can be placed on or near your house or you can do a stand alone solar farm on a small property that you own or can rent for an extended period.  One of our members did this back in 2014 and 2015 and generated last year about 140,000 kwh. At .7lb of CO2 per kwh (the carbon intensity of the local utility), this eliminated nearly 50 tons of CO2 last year!  (More than 10 times what their house and cars have caused to be emitted.)

B5. Make your Investment Accounts GREEN

1. Exclude Fossil Fuel Stocks.  If you own popular Index Funds that attempt to match performance of the S&P500 or other broad industry indexes you likely own both major producers and consumers of fossil fuels. There are funds available however, that specifically EXCLUDE them! You can even use search engines to find funds that are consistent with your goals. One example of such web page is: https://fossilfreefunds.org and a fund that excludes companies holding fossil fuel reserves (oil, gas and coal) is SPYX. See: https://www.etf.com/SPYX

C. Offset your emissions

Purchase carbon offsets or Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to reduce or eliminate your remaining carbon footprint.  Better yet, be carbon negative!  

1. Buy Carbon Offsets equal or greater than what is emitted on your behalf. The idea behind carbon offsets is that GHG emissions have been reduced from a facility such as a hog lagoon or perhaps a forest has been preserved that would have been clear cut and the GHGs that have NOT been released into the air or been captured have been quantified, usually in terms of tons of CO2²³.  Emissions of methane are usually converted into an estimated equivalent emission of CO2 relative to global warming.  Credible offsets also have a vintage associated with them giving the year in which the GHGs were reduced.  Offsets do not need to be physically represented on paper but do need to uniquely specify the units of equivalent CO2 emissions prevented and the date range where that occurred. The offsets can be sold and resold many times but only retired once.  To offset your CO2 emissions you would pay the seller to retire offsets in their possession or transfer them to you and you would retire them.  It is possible (on paper at least) to retroactively reduce your GHG footprint by buying earlier year vintages.  

2. Buy RECs equal or greater than the electric power that you use. RECs are similar to carbon offsets but are offered in energy units of electricity (MWH) delivered from renewable sources such as wind generators or solar photovoltaic cells. Like carbon offsets, RECs do not need to have a physical manifestation but do need to uniquely specify the units of energy created by renewable sources.  (e.g. specific units of energy generated cannot appear in more than one REC.) Retirement is a simple bookkeeping matter.

   Carbon offsets and RECs may be purchased directly from the entities that create them or from aggregators that act as intermediaries between potentially many different producers and potential buyers.   Most sellers will represent that offsets or RECs are verified but this is definitely a buyer beware domain and may just rely on stipulations.  For small producers you may be able to verify data yourself!  Strongly suggest that you only buy offsets where you can reasonably know what project you are investing in.  Be wary as well of buying only look ahead offsets as these represent offsets that will accrue in the future for typically forest land that will hopefully grow into larger trees.  Of course, there are no guarantees that in this age of climate change, terrible fires and invasive insects from afar that any specific forest tract will flourish.  Duke University’s carbon offset initiative has in the past combined purchases of vintage offsets with forward looking offset investments in tree plantings as a way of mitigating risks.  See: https://sustainability.duke.edu/operations/carbon-offsets

Useful links relative to offsets²⁴:

American Carbon Registry (ACR)

protocols: https://acrcarbon.org/methodologies/approved-methodologies/

project registry: https://acr2.apx.com/myModule/rpt/myrpt.asp?r=111

Climate Action Reserve

protocols: http://www.climateactionreserve.org/how/protocols/forest/

project registry: https://thereserve2.apx.com/myModule/rpt/myrpt.asp?r=111

marketplace information: https://www.climateactionreserve.org/how/carbon-market-directory/

Verified Carbon Standard (now Verra)

protocols: https://verra.org/methodologies/

project registry: https://verra.org/registry/overview/

Ecosystem Marketplaces: https://www.forest-trends.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Q12018VoluntaryCarbon.pdf

Other links related to offsets for travel and RECs:

The Good Traveler: https://thegoodtraveler.org/  This site has a very simple calculator that estimates your CO2 emissions based upon your flight origination and destination and gives you a choice of offset projects to support.

Arcadia Power: https://www.arcadiapower.com/  This organization actually processes your utility bill after sign-up and buys RECs from wind farms equal to 50% or 100% of your electric use.

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References