Of Airlines and Offsets

To their credit, most airlines seem to be offering carbon offsets these days. However, the quality of offsets offered varies dramatically. Some airlines are simply offering forestry offsets, which are controversial at best. They're completely barred from the Gold Standard, and the David Suzuki Foundation has laid out some of the arguments against forstry-based offsets, including methodology of measurement, permanence, and lack of space. Other airlines are offering a choice, which is better than strictly forestry. For some airlines, this choice includes offsets that meet the Gold Standard, one of the highest standards for carbon offsets.

Here's a summary of what some North American airlines are offering, with links to each program:

• United - choice of forestry, renewable energy, or Gold Standard
• Continental - choice of forestry, renewable energy, or Gold Standard
• Jet Blue - choice of forestry, renewable energy, or methane recapture
• American - mixed sources including renewable energy and forestry, unable to specify
• Delta - forestry
• Air Canada - forestry
• West Jet (Canadian discount domestic airline) - nothing, but if you click through from this page at Offsetters, West Jet will pay for renewable energy offsets on your behalf!

And bonus points go to Virgin Atlantic, who are not only the only airline I could find that only offers Gold Standard, but also let you purchase them onboard.

The question then becomes... Are inexpensive, poor quality offsets better than no offsets at all, or do they cheapen an important issue? Should airlines offer high-quality offsets, even if they are marginally more expensive? (We're talking less than $10 difference at most for a bi-coastal flight.)

I also would love to see numbers on how many (or more likely, how few) customers actually purchase the airline-offered offsets, but I can't find those stats.

You can read more on offset quality here.