Conscience-offsetting might become trickier as the Federal Trade Commission starts asking some awkward questions of green-orientated marketeers.
The FTC, which regulates advertising claims, raised the question at a hearing on Tuesday, the first in a series on consumer protection issues and green marketing. The FTC is reviewing its “Green Guides”, environmental marketing guidelines last updated in 1998.
Corporations and shoppers spent more than $54m on carbon offsetting last year, according to the New York Times, effectively supplementing their purchases with a tax on guilt. But where does the money go?
The easiest form of carbon offsetting to grasp is tree-planting. Most suppliers of carbon offsets say that the cost of planting a tree is roughly $5, and the tree must live for at least 100 years to fully compensate for the emissions in question. But ensuring that the trees are planted, and that emissions reductions from other sources are not double-counted, is largely unregulated: the last set of guidelines were written before the buzzwords “carbon emissions” and “sustainability”.
Till then, people might actually have to change their lifestyles instead.
Meanwhile, financial efforts to allow investors to take a punt on all things green continues. The latest launch is an index from UBS which tracks both the price of carbon credits and weather derivatives contracts, enabling investors to bet on the combined impact of carbon emissions and rising global temperatures.
