What Are Carbon Offsets and How Do They Work?

Photo by Luis Reyes, Peru

You may have heard the term carbon offset, carbon footprint, or carbon-neutral before, but do you understand what they mean and how they work together? As individuals we all have a carbon footprint based on our daily actions like driving a car, taking a flight, and consuming goods. Carbon offsets are a way to neutralize the actions we take and the actions required to support our daily lives so that our carbon footprint is minimized as much as possible. 

What are Carbon Offsets?

A carbon offset is a credit that an organization or person can purchase to reduce the carbon footprint that is generated by that individual or group. Carbon offset credits are often intended to make a person or organization carbon-neutral. This happens when enough carbon offset credits are obtained to balance out the impact. 

Carbon offsets are typically used to counteract greenhouse gas emissions that are generated by the activities of a person or organization, which include both direct and indirect emissions. These credits go toward funding renewable energy projects, land restoration and conservation, community projects, and more. 

What are Carbon Footprints?

When thinking of carbon offsets, we need to understand carbon footprints. A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gasses that are generated by specific actions, which includes both carbon dioxide and methane gasses. Carbon footprints include everything we do and consume, including travel, our home, utility usage, food, and shopping. All of these things have a direct and indirect carbon footprint. 

Carbon Offsets and Study Abroad

Study abroad programs, gap year programs, and travel, in general, comes with an associated carbon footprint. From airfare to daily excursions to food consumption to shopping- environmental and social impact need to be considered when traveling abroad. 

Dragons programs promote minimizing both environmental and cultural impact in each destination. This experience includes staying in family-owned accommodations and utilizing local transportation options like tuk-tuks, train cars, and camionetas. And while Where There Be Dragons strives to provide an environmentally responsible travel experience once abroad, airfare remains a critical component that is simply unavoidable. This is where carbon offsets come into play. 

Does Where There Be Dragons Offer Carbon Offsetting?

At Where There Be Dragons, we’re committed to reducing our carbon footprint. In 2019, Dragons began offsetting 100% of its administrative carbon footprint, and in 2020, began including carbon offsets in tuition for airfare. While we understand that carbon offsets are not the only solution for reducing our carbon footprint, we believe they are an important component of our organizational goals to reduce harmful impact.