Virgin Blue going green April 5, 2007
Posted by James Webster in : environment , trackbackAlthough there had been a press release (PDF) from the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Water Resources about this last week, I just saw an ad in today’s Financial Review talking about Virgin Blue’s (a major Australian airline for the international readers) new Carbon Offsetting program. For my last few domestic flights around Australia I have been purchasing carbon offsets from Neco as I have decided to make all my air travel from this point on carbon neutral. I applaud Virgin Blue’s efforts towards making it easier to purchase offsets but I think we will soon need to just build carbon offsets into the price of air travel.
One thing I am a little confused by is the disparity in pricing; the Government/Virgin Blue press release claim that carbon offsets can be purchased “for an average of a dollar a trip” whereas Neco’s short distance domestic flight offset (covering return flights of up to 1600kms) is $12. Admittedly for that you get posted a couple of luggage tags to proudly trumpet your carbon neutral status over your fellow passengers but I think that itself is an additional use of resources we could do without. If we are not going to force people to pay to offset their carbon footprint through taxes or higher airfares then at least the various carbon offset providers should be singing the same tune on price in order to minimise cynicism amongst the population.
Perhaps true price transparency will only be achieved when Australia implements an emissions trading market.
Comments»
Buying carbon offsets certainly has to be easier than not traveling by air all together. I read this article a while back about a lady who traveled from the Uk to Oz, without flying, in order to minimize her environmental impact.
http://www.ioltravel.co.za/article/view/3552997
Her story got picked up by a variety of news source, so I’m not sure how many forests were destroyed in syndicating it.
An emissions trading market in Oz would be great. This would be the first step in creating all sorts of other fun and interesting securities to trade. Once you have a stable market for trading emissions, then you can issue derivatives on those securities. Later, you can repackage existing products with real or leveraged emissions credits. Imagine buying a bond from some oil refinery, and attached to it are x offsetting carbon credits.
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