Carbon offsetting

[kalniel]

Does anyone do this? Any tips?

I want to make a long journey in a few weeks for family reasons, and, due to the location, travelling by car looks like the best option. But I feel bad about doing that many miles for essentially a day or two. So I had a quick look into offsetting schemes.

I'm sure you're all familiar with the principle: work out how much carbon you'll be releasing and donate towards a project which will remove or reduce the carbon release from somewhere else. My difficulty is in assessing the trustworthyness of any scheme that will happily take my money, and understanding which projects have a realistic chance of actually producing a net positive outcome (and not just create other problems/not be effective/would have happened anyway).

[peterb]

You could make a donation to The Woodland Trust.

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/

[AGTDenton]

Consider feeding the birds in your garden if you have one, (unless you have several cats) - and Bees, we need more Bees! They and sadly Wasps do a lot more for carbon than we give them credit for. Ours seem to be dying off.

https://www.bbka.org.uk

Remove some concrete slabs from your garden if you have any and plant a small bush or tropical plant in it's place.
So many gardens and driveways have been plastered over with concrete these days.
Helps with flooding as well...

[Zak33]

Those /\ are both excellent ideas..

Plant a tree yourself, and tend it.
Create a bee house (or buy one if you cant make one..just google bee house to see what I mean)

[kalniel]

Consider feeding the birds in your garden if you have one, (unless you have several cats) - and Bees, we need more Bees! They and sadly Wasps do a lot more for carbon than we give them credit for. Ours seem to be dying off.

https://www.bbka.org.uk

Remove some concrete slabs from your garden if you have any and plant a small bush or tropical plant in it's place.
So many gardens and driveways have been plastered over with concrete these days.
Helps with flooding as well...

I rent a flat

[Zak33]

I rent a flat

do you know anyone with a garden, who wants a tree but won't buy one?

[jimbouk]

https://www.9trees.org/ is a nice option.

WE PLANT TREES FOR YOU

Seems to cover your needs

[Hoonigan]

I rent a flat

A tin of peas and sweetcorn down the local pond will do.

[sammyc]

Remove some concrete slabs from your garden if you have any and plant a small bush or tropical plant in it's place.
So many gardens and driveways have been plastered over with concrete these days.
Helps with flooding as well...

Tell me about it; round here if it's green, dig it up / pave it / revolting cemetery-style gravel it or fake lawn it.. beats me that someone would rather look at a vertical cross section of a butchered boundary tree than watch birds nest in it and let insects have the benefit of it.