How to Make Your Car Eco-Friendly

Because carbon-offset programs are voluntary in the U.S., participants in programs like DrivingGreen tend to do so because they are personally committed to reducing their emissions footprint or because of the public relations benefits that such participation might bring, according to Dan Linsky, program director for DrivingGreen.com.

All of the emissions-reduction projects that DrivingGreen is now working on involve capturing methane from animal waste. A list of the current projects can be found on DrivingGreen's Web site.

The amount of emissions contained by the various projects is verified by an independent third party, SES Inc.. The verifier visits the projects and confirms that the amount of methane being captured at the facilities is being correctly reported.

Each pound of methane that's kept out of the atmosphere is equal to cutting out 21 pounds of carbon dioxide, DrivingGreen says.

DrivingGreen will soon offer a broader range of eco-friendly projects that users will be able to choose from, Linsky says.

The company recently offset the entire operations of a major conference on carbon markets and trading in New York. The conference was sponsored by Point Carbon, a international consultancy for energy and carbon markets. After accounting for the number of attendees at the conference, the distance traveled by those attendees, and the number of hotel rooms required to house the attendees, DrivingGreen calculated that the event produced close to 522 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The cost to offset this carbon was just over $4,100.

DrivingGreen is a for-profit company. When a carbon offset is made, 70% of the funds are sent to help fund the methane-capture project, while 30% is retained by DrivingGreen. The company is a subsidiary of AgCert, a global developer for carbon-offset projects, whose shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange.