Terrapass Winding Down?
Posted by Mark Ontkush in Reduce, re-use, recycle | 20 March 2007
Looks like this for-profit carbon offsetter may be nearly played out, according to a recent Business Week article on their business practices. Terrapass is one of those companies where you pay them money to offset the carbon generated by your lifestyle; supposedly, they take your money and invest in projects that take carbon dioxide out of the air.
Except for one thing; they aren't fully doing it. According to the article, many of their associated carbon reduction projects were already started before they came onto the scene; Terrapass merely negotiates an agreement to 'buy' the carbon dioxide or methane that would have gone into the atmosphere without the project, then sells it off. And the profits seem to be fairly large; some of the farmers claim in the article they are getting less than $2 a ton, and they get sold for about $9. This is in agreement with the Tufts study, that found that for-profit carbon offsetters took up to 85 percent of the fees for their personal use.
Obviously, this is disappointing. Here's how it might wind down; one of the founders will leave the company. The company will lurch on for another year or two under increasing bombardment from news organizations who unravel the truth about their business model. Eventually they fade away, the owners taking positions in other companies. Will they get rich off this? We will never know.
