Best Foot Forward

From our point of view there are a couple of problems with this model of tackling climate change ...

Firstly, on a purely technical level, they have quoted the average UK resident footprint of 4.48tCO2 - which is Defra's figure for home and personal travel only. The actual footprint of an average UK resident is likely to be at least double this when taking into account imported goods, public services, food consumption etc (kind of ironic when this website is promoting increased consumption of imported goods!).

Secondly, supporters may argue that it's better for someone to purchase goods and contribute to some sort of benefit (depending on how you view the true effectiveness of carbon offsetting). However, in reality, money saved on such a sites would be spent on more products/services (each with their own embodied and in-use carbon impact) ...

BFF feel this sort of initiative is sending the wrong message to consumers - that you can effectively neutralise your impact by consuming more. Unfortunately, consumption is still coupled to environmental damage and so the message must be for us to reduce consumption - while looking for new ways of decoupling our economies.

(PS See the blog post above for Compare2Offset's response!)