The carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?
In northern Louisiana, ecologists are creating a new forest — one Beetle at a time. In a floodplain known as the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, nearly 250,000 trees are being planted by a not-for-profit group called Carbonfund.org. Funding for the massive project, however, is coming from a decidedly for-profit outfit: Volkswagen of America.
Like dozens of other businesses in the United States, the VW unit is tying reforestation to a promotional campaign. In Volkswagen's case, the company claims the planting of the trees, which take in carbon dioxide, will negate the tailpipe fumes for one year for every car VW sold during the past four months. In "greenspeak," Volkswagen is offsetting its downstream CO2 emissions. In plainer English, the conversion of farmland to forest will — in theory — capture 372,000 tons of CO2, which Carbonfund.org claims will help combat global warming.
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