How To Offset The CO2 Emission Of Your Flight?

Right now we are sitting on a plane to New Zealand and probably we've almost arrived our destination, which is Christchurch. Although we are very excited about that trip, we have started this flight with a bad conscience. Because we know, especially this flight, due to the long distance, causes an immense carbon impact on our environment. But a while ago Dani and me were thinking about how to change our travel habits for our upcoming destinations after our trip to New Zealand. We decided that the New Zealand flight should be our last big flight we gonna use to quench our wanderlust. So in order to causes less CO2 emission we wanna try to travel only with our Landcruiser "Lenny", which we have outfitted as an overlander with a tend on the rooftop. As you may know we live on Gran Canaria and we have already made some test trips with “Lenny the overland” to the mountains of Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura. And, what can I say, it was awesome! So that means there are still some islands missing, like El Hierro, La Palma, La Gomera, Lanzarote and Tenerife. Although we also have to take the ferry to get to the other islands, which again causes CO2 emission, we will hopefully produce less.

But there is also one thing we can do. And this is a good news for all those who also like to travel or need to travel by plane. We can compensate the CO2 output with Atmosfair. What I would like to present you today. Because this is a great option to redeem the CO2 output we produce on our travels. I will also use Atmosfair for the New Zealand flight and I have already tried Atmosfair for the New York flight.

So read on, if you like to know how it works.

As you already know, Dani and me really love to travel to discover new places and meet other people, to dive into unknown cultures, like many other people, too. Recently we use the plane with a guilty conscience, because we know about the ecological footprint we leave.

We should know, when we travel by plane we unfortunately leave not only a small footprint but a rather large one. Imagine, two bathtubs full of kerosine are burnt per passager on a flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles. Average 10 % of the climate warming caused by humans come from the air traffic. But what can we do when not flying isn’t an option? Because we are living on Gran Canaria and from time to time we have to take the plane to visit our family in Germany or to get some important things done in your homeland. One answer is the German organisation atmosfair. It’s a kind of climate protection organisation, specialized on offsetting travels. True to their guiding principle „first avoid – then reduce – and only then offset“, they support innovative projects for alternative products to avoid and reduce carbon. Besides, they give very interesting advices and tips to travel climate-friendly.

But what is offsetting?

The basic idea of offsetting is that you pay money into a carbon-capture or storage project that equates to the amount of carbon you have expended on any given activity.

This I would like to show you today with my flight to New York, which I offset a few weeks ago.

The flight from Madrid to New York (round trip) for example causes an emission of 1.729 kg of CO2. Just to compare this number: a refrigerator causes 100 kg CO2 per year. A flight from Paris to Chicago (round-trip) causes 3.558 kg of CO2. Or Madrid to Christchurch (round trip), which has the highest CO2 output, uses 9.312 kg CO2. A car that is used for 35 km per day causes 2.000 kg of CO2 per year.

You see how enormous the CO2 emission is on our flights we take every year or even more often, only for holidays to let us recover well. I know that holidays, traveling to get out is necessary for one person more and another person less, but luckily now exist a possibility to compensate the emission we causes.

In order to offset your emission, the website of Atmosfair calculates the amount you should donate to an environmental project if you want to offset you emission. For a Madrid-New York-round-trip it would be cost 40 Euro, Paris-Chicago 82 Euro and Madrid-Christchurch 216€. Even though avoiding CO2 is always the better choice, Atmosfair gives us a great opportunity to contribute to our planet when we take a plane despite our bad conscience.

But now let me show you step by step what I did.

1.) Go to the website of Atmosfair.

2.) Click on “Offset Flight” and a CO2 emissions calculator opens up.

3.) First you should click “round trip” or “one way”. Then fill out all the information of your flight, such as airport of departure and destination, flight class, flight type and aircraft type. Click “Calculate”.

4.)You will get the “Emissions Calculate Results”. This information will show you how much CO2 you approximately caused with the flight and how much you should donate to offset this emission.

5.) If you have decided to donate this amount (you can also reduce or increase the amount on your own), then take the next step and make the payment with your credit card.

6.) If you like, they send you a certification for the offsetting you’ve done, which you will get per email (I actually don’t remember exactly). I just did it to figured out how it works.

But I also would like to mention that, offsetting carbon is not a solution for justifying all our travels. Short distances are often very good to reach by train. Or did you ever visit the different cultures around you? There is such a rich cultural diversity just on our doorsteps. We are really looking forward to discover the Seven Islands of Canarias. For sure, I will share with you the most beautiful places on the Canaria Islands, in order to show you that the Canary Islands aren’t the typical all-inclusive tourists destinations. So stay tuned. My next post is about our first overland trip in the mountains of Gran Canaria (in 4 weeks).

Thats’s why I have to tell you another little thing. As you see I decided not to publish a new article during our New Zealand trip. Because I would like to enjoy this trip, which is very important for us and I don’t like to worry about writing a new article. I just would like to spend these 4 weeks without writing any post. So, I hope you understand that I will publish the next article not before we are back home. Of course we will spam you with a lot of Instagram stories about New Zealand, which I hope it’s ok for you.

See you in 4 weeks.

And I wish you all a good time!

Love,

Katy

Pics by Daniell Bohnhof

Text by Look2 Ocean