Offsetting Greenhouse Gases by Using The GreenRoad
Whereis, an online mapping website, has team up with Greenfleet to reduce the carbon emissions produced by Australian drivers in a campaign called The GreenRoad. This campaign was started in order to offset the CO2 emissions from up to 200km or 125 miles of a trip you take. I wanted to find out a little more background information about this campaign and try it out for myself.
Photo by absolutwade.
Whereis initially started in 1997 and is a subsidiary of a leading Australian information corporation Sensis. Since then, they have become a leading online mapping application for both Australia and New Zealand. Greenfleet is a non-profit organization that plants native trees on behalf of motorists and businesses across Australia. To date, they have planted more than 3 million trees to offset the greenhouse gases created from cars.
Together, the two organizations are offsetting greenhouse gases through the GreenRoad campaign. The basic concept for the program is pretty simple. Find directions for a trip using the Whereis mapping application. For every kilometer of the trip for up to 200 km, Greenfleet will plant trees to offset the amount of CO2 generated from your car during those trips. Over 6100 trips have already had their carbon emissions offset through the planting of 350 trees. This will lead to 93 tons of carbon gases being offset. Those are impressive numbers for a program that just recently started. What I also didn’t realize is that it is completely free and funded entirely by Sensis.
I wanted to try out this program for myself to see if it was as simple as they say. I went to the Whereis website and put in two random locations to find directions for. There was a link directly below my travel distance taking me to the GreenRoad website. The registration was easy as it only requires my name and email address. Once I registered, it showed how CO2 offset credits I had remaining out of the 200km I am allotted. You then click a button to offset the particular trip. The process was really simple and took very little work on my part.
It’s refreshing to see these two organizations taking the initiative to take a small step towards reducing greenhouse gases. If you currently live in Australia or New Zealand, you should take full advantage of this program and use as many of the 200km as you can.
You can still take part in helping offset CO2 even if you can’t participate in this program. There are plenty of volunteer opportunities through the Arbor Day Foundation or you can donate to Plant a Tree Today Foundation and Greenfleet to have new trees planted. You could also try to limit the amount you drive or participate in car pooling programs with fellow co-workers. There are a numerous other ways to leave a smaller carbon footprint, many of which require little or no change in your lifestyle. Every little thing makes a difference.
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5 Responses to “Offsetting Greenhouse Gases by Using The GreenRoad”
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I wish they had a travel program like this in the US. I think it would be incredibly successful! I know I would use it.
Dagny
http://www.onnotextiles.com
bamboo and organic clothing
I agree. I would use something like this if Google Maps or Yahoo maps introduced it. May one of them will notice this cool campaign and try to pick it up.
Drive Your Car Guilt Free - Offsetting Greenhouse Gases by Using The GreenRoad…
Whereis, an online mapping website, has team up with Greenfleet to reduce the carbon emissions produced by Australian drivers in a campaign called The GreenRoad. This campaign was started in order to offset the CO2 emissions from up to 200km or 125 mil…
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