My last greenish post here was almost a year ago, where I outlined a few of things we did to lessen EchoDitto's environmental footprint as we moved into our own new digs.
At first, we thought we were in the clear given that we're not in the business of manufacturing or shipping lawn ornaments or other products. But then our rough self-assessment quickly revealed that our extensive aerial globe-trotting was easily our largest contribution to global warming. As would probably be true for other consultants, technologists, or similar organizations, our flight emissions were more than negating any good we were doing to limit our footprint in other areas.
The ideal solution would have been to try and reduce our travel, but as much as we're eager to experiment with all sorts of technology for conference calls, video-conferencing, and screen-sharing, there's just no replacement for face-to-face meetings.
The short answer is that we jumped on the carbon offsetting bandwagon early last fall. We simply plug our flight information into TerraPass, and it tells us how much we need to pay them to invest in renewable energy projects to "balance out" the impact of our flight. (We're not wedded to TerraPass over other solutions, but their website makes it very easy to calculate our flight emissions.)
The more interesting piece is that we're sharing the responsibility of these offsets with our clients. Since the fees are modest, this is primarily an educational tool to remind both our clients and ourselves that there are real environmental costs and externalities associated with our work.
Here's the language that we've added to every single proposal and agreement since late last year:
Travel costs will be pre-approved and invoiced separately. In keeping with EchoDitto's commitment to social and environmental responsibility, your invoice will also include fifty percent of the cost of carbon offsets purchased to neutralize the carbon dioxide emissions generated by our travel on this project. We will share this cost with you by covering the other fifty percent. By capturing some of the social and environmental costs of our work with you, we are together helping to slow climate change.
We've received some great feedback from our clients and partners thus far. If you like it, I hope you'll consider using it or adapting it for your own organization or consultancy. If you do, please let us know by commenting here. And happy Earth Day!
