The Travel Republic website is down at the moment so cant see it.Sounds like gobbledegook to me but whatever it is you dont have to do it, unless its something to do with excess baggage

Fat Sam,

the only way to carbon balance a flight is not to fly in the first place! There are no laws on carbon balancing, not yet at least!

Darren

Thanks for comments - I have checked out the links through to the world land trust now. For our flights we can fully off set for less than a tenner so I think I will. Now I feel good!!!

If you book through Travel Republic they include this balancing for you at no extra cost to yourself.

what on earth is carbon balancing anyway?

Air travel contributes to global warming through emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2). The Carbon Footprint of your flight is the amount of CO2 produced, measured from the amount of aviation fuel consumed.

You can now Carbon Balance some flights by compensating for your flight's Carbon Footprint. This is done by an additional voluntary payment, which is put towards planting trees, etc to take in CO2 and therefore remove from the atmosphere the same amount of CO2 as your flight releases into it.

Various companies have been set up to arrange to plant and protect areas of forest which will take up the same amount of CO2 as was produced by your flight. Your net CO2 emissions for that flight will be zero and you will have compensated for your impact on global warming.

Howveer carbon balancing does nothing for the Nitrous Oxide & other pollutants that aircraft kick out - most of which ARE greenhouse gases & which because of the height aircrazft fly at are even more effective as greenhouse gases

Various companies have been set up to arrange to plant and protect areas of forest which will take up the same amount of CO2 as was produced by your flight. Your net CO2 emissions for that flight will be zero and you will have compensated for your impact on global warming.

Thats fine in theory, but in practice, this is just another money making scam / company marketing to say its doing its bit / charity looking to do its bit. In reality, although its a contribution towards your carbon footprint for the flight, it'll never be zero. It maybe in 20, 30 years time when the tree(s) are mature, but in the short term, you might as well not bother! Most of these companies are there for the feel good factor, make passengers feel like they are 'doing their bit' to offset their travelling. As I said earlier, the only way to carbon balance your flight is not to fly in the first place! Every little helps, but in reality, individual carbon balancing will do nothing unless it is done collectively, and on a global scale. The rate of deforrestation is way more than afforestation at the moment. There are more issues than just reducing emmissions.

Until certain parts of the world acknowledge there is a problem, carbon balancing throughout europe will have a minute effect globally.

Just my 1p worth!

Darren