Consumer Report – What's our Caper?

If you've read the latest consumer magazine you might think that all we do is leap and frolic (to caper) while inaccurately assessing people's environmental impact, driven by selfish intent.

Consumer was able to tell you a lot more about our business and intentions (although not with accuracy) than it was able to tell you about other schemes.

Carbon.org.nz offers carbon offset services through the sale and planting of trees. How much you choose to offset is up to you as (at present) it's completely voluntary.

Precise calculation of carbon emissions associated with human activities is impossible due to the complexity and underlying infrastructure that needs to exist before we can take international flights, buy a new vehicle for driving to work and so on.
We set international air travel at 4 trees because we understand that the fuel burned in the engine is just part of the carbon picture.

It's true that a portion of the money that we receive from tree planting is used to cover administration costs. The Consumer reporters apparently had trouble reading our pie chart. Our overheads are 25%, made up of 10% admin (to cover our website and other educational material) and 15% for maintenance. Maintenance includes fencing, pest protection and replanting.

The purpose of planting trees is to use their unique ability to solidify carbon out of the air. Eventually the tree dies and its ability to store carbon fails. The carbon is lost back into the atmosphere undoing all the good work. By planting trees with varied life spans over a varied landscape we can selectively replace trees at the end of their lives. For oak trees this could be 100+ years, not something that Mr Sinclair is going to benefit from any time soon.

If anyone is interested in knowing who owns the consumer.org.nz domain name, a quick “whois” search will show that it is registered to a Andrew Leggott of Te Aro, Wellington.