TerraPass
Category: Brand Ratings -> Carbon Offset -> TerraPass

      TerraPass


Greenopia Environment Achievement:

Calculator

Transparency

Audit






Offset Projects:

TerraPass, one of the industry leaders in carbon offsets, focuses on methane recapture projects in landfills or on farms. TerraPass does also offer some renewable energy offsets (not to be confused with Renewable Energy Credits (or RECs). These projects types are all considered high quality carbon offset methods.

Footprint Calculator:

TerraPass has a very good footprint calculator that generates impacts for travel, transportation, and home energy usage. It uses high quality data sources such as the EPA, WRI, and even uses actual airline data for the travel category. TerraPass has the ability to pull energy data from your local zip code, something that few carbon calculators can do. For the flight category, TerraPass does not use a RFI (Radiative Forcing Index) to alter the transportation impact citing recent studies that question the validity of this index.

Transparency:

Simply put, you will not find better transparency that TerraPass. They are the only offset that allows its projects to go through a public comment period before they are put into action. They also do not sell vintage offsets and do not forward sell. TerraPass also puts its audits on its website for the public to scrutinize.

Validations and Auditing:

TerraPass does annual audits and as noted above, these can be seen on their webpage. TerraPass uses standards such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard and Climate Action Reserve to make sure their projects are of high quality. We feel that both of these standards are very good and we encourage our readers to check out the standard’s criteria for more information.

Greenopia Verdict:

TerraPass is head and shoulders above the rest of the industry in terms of transparency, project selection, and usability, and should be commended for its dedication.