Those Flights

Delighted to receive an email today from Key Travel, who specialise in working with charities, announcing their carbon calculator.

This is just what we need to offset the irreduceable flying that we have to do. So for my upcoming flight to Nairobi and Lusaka, they report that I will be producing 4 tons of CO2. To offset this I’m offered options for planting trees in Mexico or Uganda. I’ve chosen the Bushenyi District in Uganda where they say they are planting of mixed native woodlot for timber, including mahogany, cedar, African cherry, laurel, and silk trees, with
boundary planting for fuel wood and fruit. My offset costs £16.43.

Sending this off results in an immediate email from the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management, who seem to be a central authority in this area that so many people refer to. They promise to send a leaflet with more details of the scheme along with the invoice.

All this strikes me as both a very efficient operation (done in 5 minutes) and surprisingly cheap. The Future Forest gift scheme offered one tree for £10 (a fifth of a tonne of carbon). Wheras this is 20 trees for £16.43 or one tree for a little under £1. So cutting out the middle organisation seems a good idea, although they are clearly doing good things with the margin.

The very low cost also allows us to fully compensate for all our flights (both as a company and a family) without this remaining as a barrier to reaching our target for this year of 15 tonnes. All good news.