Global warming and human-influenced climate change remain top issues worldwide as we look for ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow the warming. Many people and corporations have done as much as possible to reduce their carbon footprint by changing their lifestyles and business models. However, these changes can only get you so far, meaning you almost always have some residual carbon footprint.
Fortunately, you can offset your carbon footprint through carbon reduction credits. Terrapass and Carbonfund.org each have solid business models and high-quality carbon credits, but which is better?
Below, we explore the Terrapass vs. Carbonfund.org competition to see how they stack up to one another in project type, carbon offset quality and verification, their rates, and more to help you determine your best option.
Terrapass vs. Carbonfund.org: How They Compare
Terrapass and Carbonfund.org have a common goal: Help improve the environment to slow human-influenced climate change by reducing your carbon footprint. They both do so through the sale of carbon offset credits that support projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions through direct reduction or carbon sequestering — such as absorption through planting trees and other plants.
While these companies have a similar target, they have their own ways of doing it. Let’s dive into the similarities and differences between Terrapass and Carbonfund.org to see how they stack up against one another.
Project Types
The types of projects a carbon reduction company works with makes a difference to many people looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Let’s look at the kinds of projects Terrapass and Carbonfund.org support to help offset your carbon footprint.
Terrapass
Terrapass works with many projects that support reforestation, sustainable development, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG emissions) reduction via wind power plants, and more. It supports projects in local communities and around the world to help create a cleaner future.
Some of the projects Terrapass supported in 2022 include:
- Cordillera Azul National Park REDD+: This project helps reduce deforestation in the lowland and montane forests in four areas of central Peru: San Martín, Ucayali, Huánuco, and Loreto. The avoidance of deforestation is achieved through strengthening park protection, encouraging conservation-compatible land use, and improving the quality of life of the park’s neighbors.
- Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority: This landfill uses cutting-edge landfill gas capture technology to convert the methane gas from garbage decomposition at a landfill in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, into energy. Through the support of carbon offset funding, this landfill reduced its CO2 emissions by 18,319 tons in 2020 and 10,914 in 2021.
- Crow Lake Wind Emissions Reduction Project: This project uses funds from carbon offset purchases to help build, upgrade, and support a 108-turbine wind farm in South Dakota. This wind farm generates up to 162 megawatts (MW) of wind energy, offsetting 432,128 metric tons of CO2 emissions through fossil fuel-based energy.
Carbonfund.org
Carbonfund also works with various project types to help reduce carbon emissions. These projects are focused on increasing energy efficiency, forestry, and renewable energy.
Some projects that Carbonfund.org has supported include:
- Truck Stop Electrification Project: This project helps reduce tailpipe emissions from freight trucks during their mandated rest periods. During these rest periods, long-haul truck drivers usually idle their tricks to power in-cab heating and cooling. They also idle to power other things like radios, televisions, refrigerators, and more, burning about a gallon of diesel fuel per hour. This project provides an in-cab service module that heats, cools, and powers the truck’s interior without leaving the truck idling.
- The Purus Project: This forest-conservation project protects about 86,000 acres of tropical rainforest in Brazil. The deforestation prevention project will preserve the habitat for local wildlife and help prevent the release of 900,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
- Texas Capricorn Ridge Wind Project: This project generates 662.5 MW of power through wind turbines, which is enough electricity to power over 220,000 homes. On top of that, it adds a tax base to the area and economic stimulus without creating air or water pollution. There are 36 employees at the plant, and it does not interfere with land use for agriculture.
Project Quality
While buying carbon reduction credits is great for offsetting your carbon footprint, you must ensure they are high-quality credits. Low-quality credits could include projects that are not beneficial, sustainable, or additional. In some cases, these credits may even be double sold, meaning the second buyer is actually funding nothing beneficial to the environment, thereby not offsetting any carbon emissions.
This is why verification is so very important. Let’s compare the verification process at Terrapass vs. Carbonfund.org.
Terrapass
Terrapass assures transparency and quality in the creation, quantification, and verification of the carbon offset projects it supports. It ensures they are real, additional (meaning they wouldn’t have occurred in typical business operations), permanent, quantifiable, never double-counted or double-sold, and independently verified.
Terrapass uses five popular offset standards — Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard, the Climate Action Reserve, CSA Group, and the American Carbon Registry — when choosing high-quality projects.
Terrapass also uses an independent third party to perform periodic reviews of its project portfolio. This review looks at three main areas of carbon credits:
- Offset quantity: Did Terrapass source the correct amount of carbon offsets for its customers?
- Offset quality: Did Terrapass stick to its own quality benchmarks for the carbon offsets it provided customers?
- Transparency and verification: Terrapass submits its portfolios to an independent accountant for verification and publishes the findings once verification is complete.
Carbonfund.org
Like Terrapass, Carbonfund.org ensures only the highest-quality carbon offset programs are funded through its system. It’s standards for achieving this include:
- Third-party certification standards
- Third-party validation and ongoing validation
- Third-party annual audit
Carbonfund ensures the carbon offset programs it funds are high quality through any of the following popular standards:
- American Carbon Registry
- Climate Action Reserve
- Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standard
- Gold Standard
- ISO-14064
- Social Carbon
- Verified Carbon Standard
- UNFCCC Carbon Credits
Carbonfund.org’s essential criteria for identifying a high-quality carbon-offset program are that it is real, additional, permanent, and verifiable — just like Terrapass. It also adds another criterion: leakage. This is the project’s positive or negative impacts on areas outside its boundaries, and Carbonfund.org’s goal is to have the least amount of negative leakage.
In addition to these essential criteria, Carbonfund.org has additional criteria it looks at to ensure it’s choosing the most beneficial projects. These include project location, market transformation, and environmental and social benefits.
Rate Comparison
Rates are another thing to consider when buying carbon reduction credits. But keep in mind that high-quality credits generally come at a higher cost than ones you can buy elsewhere. Given the selective nature of Terrapass and Carbonfund.org, their carbon credits are costlier than some.
Let’s review the costs associated with the carbon offset credits you can purchase from Terrapass vs. Carbonfund.org.
Terrapass
Terrapass has a wide range of carbon reduction packages to help offset your carbon footprint. Let’s review these programs and their rates.
- Personal carbon offsets: $7.49 per 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (also available as a monthly subscription)
- Flight carbon offset: $8.00 per 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide
- Renewable energy certificates: $15.00 per megawatt-hour (MWh)
- EcoTourist bundle: $64.00 per 8,000 pounds of carbon dioxide
- Christmas tree offset: $1 per 100 pounds of carbon dioxide
Terrapass also has household packages that start from $8.34 per month to offset a one-person household with no car and no frequent flying plans to $64.87 for a 4-plus person household with three cars and up to 20 regional or four international flights annually.
If you’re getting married, there is often an environmental impact associated with the event. Terrapass offers three levels of wedding carbon offsets — Silver, Gold, and Diamond. Here’s their cost and what they include:
- Silver: Offsets 0.5 metric tons of CO2 per person at $7.99 per person attending the wedding
- Gold: Offsets 0.5 metric tons of CO2 per person and 1 metric ton of carbon for a domestic vacation destination for $9.99 per person attending the wedding
- Diamond: Offsets 0.5 metric tons of CO2 per person and includes 1,000 gallons of water restoration certificates per person and 2 metric tons of carbon for an international vacation destination for $14.99 per person attending the wedding.
If you’re uncertain how much carbon emissions you need to offset, you can use the Terrapass carbon calculator to get a close estimate.
Carbonfund.org
Carbonfund.org offers a wide range of carbon reduction credits in five main categories: lifestyle, vehicles, air travel, homes, and events/gifts. Pricing is straightforward too. No matter the offset, the cost is $12.50 per metric ton of CO2 emissions.
You can calculate your total carbon footprint using Carbonfund.org’s individual carbon footprint calculator.
Choosing the Right Carbon Offset Program
Terrapass and Carbonfund.org each offer great options for people looking to reduce their carbon footprint. No matter which provider you choose, you’re doing your part to help reduce global emissions and improve our environment and ecosystem for years to come.
But which of these programs is best for you? If you’re seeking a relatively simple way to offset a specific amount of carbon, Carbonfund may be a good option. Plus, at an average of roughly $5.67 per metric ton of carbon, it does so at a slightly lower rate than Terrapass.
However, Terrapass offers convenient monthly subscriptions, allowing you to set your monthly offsets without worrying about forgetting them. Also, Terrapass offers unique options, such as wedding packages, clean energy certificates, and water restoration certificates, giving you a complete package of sustainability options.