Picking up after your pet: Now it’s carbon emissions offsets for dogs
Dog owners now have a way to offset their furry friend’s carbon paw print.
Wellington business GoodyGood also gives customers the option to offset the carbon expended by themselves, their household and their barbecue parties.
GoodyGood was founded by old friends John Ong and Mike Stewart, who wanted to do something about climate change but felt the options were overwhelming and a bit boring.
So they created an online subscription platform where customers could buy annual, monthly or weekly packages to offset their personal carbon emissions, Ong said.
‘‘This is a way for people to lessen their personal impact on the climate, but we wanted to make it fun,’’ he said.
Offsets are sold by companies taking carbon out of the atmosphere, either by creating renewable energy or holding regenerative forest land that collects and holds carbon, he said.
Carbon offsets are usually bought in bulk by governments or large businesses to counterbalance emissions.
GoodyGood bought these large blocks of expensive carbon offsets and broke them down into smaller chunks that could be bought by individuals or households.
Its offsets came from native forest holdings in Taranaki, a wind farm in India, a solar power farm in Chile and an 8000-hectare portion of the Amazon rainforest owned by an anti-deforestation group in Brazil.
As an ‘‘offset retailer’’, GoodyGood bought carbon offsets in bulk and sold them on to individual users at a small margin, Ong said.
Subscribers choose whether to offset their emissions by using New Zealand or global offsets.
A New Zealand subscription for one person costs $19 a week, a global subscription is $6 a week, or it is $9 a week for a mix of both.
A barbecue party could be covered for $11.
Offsetting personal activities got users interested in where and how they were generating carbon, Ong said.
‘‘People are often not sure where their carbon is coming from. When people purchase our barbecue offset they are often shocked to discover that there is more carbon produced in 1kg of meat than in an entire gas bottle.’’
Each of the offsets was based on the carbon emissions of an average household, plus a bit extra to make sure everyone was covered no matter their lifestyle, Ong said.
Early users had already offset 150 tonnes of CO .
‘‘A lot of our users are already doing things to lessen their climate output. They are aware of carbon offsets, but maybe are not sure how to access them.
‘‘We wanted to make the process simple, and make offsets one more thing people can add to their climate action kit.’’