Ecologi

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Edit - updated thread title as they’ve changed names to Ecologi

Anyone else use Offset Earth or a similar service?

https://offset.earth/

I enjoy the ease of use of the service set it up, choose the options you want and you’re doing a small bit too help the world. They’ve just launched the option to support a project in the UK.

You get monthly updates on what projects you’re money’s gone into and can read more about them.

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Not come across offset earth before now so thanks for sharing it! I try to be ethical in terms of the products and services I buy as a consumer. One of the clothes manufacturers I sometimes buy from also sell a product they call Climate Credits. I probably buy more carbon credits from them than clothes these days!

I think it’s a pretty neat idea, and something I use for aspects of my life that naturally increase my carbon footprint, or for travelling when it’s not always possible or convenient to avoid pollution.

Update: I’ve subscribed to Offset Earth! I don’t always prefer subscription services, and I loved just buying some climate credits from time to time. But after having a look through their website, I’m very impressed.

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It came up as a suggestion a few months ago on Facebook so thought I’d give it a try, I’m glad I did to be fair there’s a whole host of knowledge about the projects, who’s been helped and where. I think mines a tenner a month now, just have it set for myself and 4 pets and then added on the UK project support one this month as that’s totally brand new.

I think the link below should show what I’ve saved on carbon so far, how many trees etc.

https://offset.earth/dave81

It’s good to be able to do it this way as for most people going out and planting a forest or helping out with various projects is pretty much out of our scope, at least this way there’s a sense of inclusion

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Scrolled down and saw a tree dividend! Was curious so I had a read about it on their blog. It’s a fantastic idea!

My subscription is £5 per month which covers me and my dog. The extra £3.40 for the U.K. planted tree is quite tempting too, but it’s a steep monthly cost for what I gather is just going to be a single tree for the lifetime of the subscription, so I imagine the novelty of it will wear off. I could probably also just buy myself a tree for a one off cost and get more satisfaction out of planting and growing that. It’s a shame reforestation projects in the U.K. are so much more expensive.

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I read it as the £3.40 extra for the tree each month would plant a new tree each month.

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Are you sure? The wording to me seems to clearly indicate they just plant one tree. But there is very little info or clarity. If someone can verify that’s 1 tree per month, I will gladly pay the extra £3.40

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Yeah it’s a tree per month or at least that’s how I read it when updating the subscription along with helping the woolly pigs out. Works like the normal trees abroad it’s just more expensive to do the work over here

https://offset.earth/projects/reforesting-dalry-scotland

Edit, I’ve dropped them a message will see what the response is

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Thanks! Please update when you hear back!

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Yeah have been set up with them for about half a year now. Like you say, nice to be able to contribute to doing some good and so much transparency and info on the site so you know where your money’s going.

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We have done it for the last 9 months and upgraded last month to add the UK project too. :slight_smile:
https://offset.earth/boudjinis

Also, I fund this to book flights and I will most likely try it once covid19 is gone. https://flygrn.com/

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I also read it as just one tree - “Get a photo of your actual tree” and “GPS coordinates of your tree” - all sound like just the one.

Interesting initiative.

Though I am a bit caught up now in reading about how it they are set up / fund these projects - I’m really keen to know how my money is spent in a donation, so what I discovered for anyone else interested:

Tree Planting

  • The donation to Offset Earth covers both Tree Planting and Carbon Offset
  • Tree Planting, by default, is done in a Madagascar mangrove, and donations are made to another charity doing the planting, Eden Projects.
  • Accordign to the Eden Projects FAQ page, it costs about $0.10 to plant 1 tree in Madagascar, including all salary + maintenance costs too - so 12 trees = $1.20.
  • Looking at Eden’s financials, about 55% of their annual spend goes directly on tree planting (buying trees, paying people to plant trees, equipment), and 30% on their staff salaries. (The remaining 15% on marketing, sundries, other cost of doing business things).

CO2 Offsetting

  • Carbon Offsetting projects - are funded Monthly, and go to a “Gold Standard” offsetting project per month. (Gold Standard is an organisation managing donation to carbon offset project, not neccesarily a statement of the quality of the project).
  • It’s only the offsetting project that counts in the CO2 Footprint calculation (i.e. they don’t count the tree planting in that).
  • They have a register of all the projects they have historically supported here - with links to evidence that ‘credits’ have been spent.
  • They basically “buy” offset credits through this platform, and allocate them to the project of choice. Market place for projects basically.
  • The platform does a lot of work to certify and validate the projects too, so a lot of this work is funded.
  • Per their page, they offset 14 Tonnes CO2 / year / subscriber, or about 1.2 tonnes per month.
  • I see average figures on the two platforms they donate to hovering around $10-15 USD per Tonne CO2, or between 5-10 USD / tonne, depending on the project. (Though I assume there is some form of bulk donation benefit?)
  • I can’t see much info about how those credits relate into final £ amount the project they fund recieve though - myriad of fee structures that look confusing, and their financials don’t divulge costs of salaries, office expenses, etc, separately to issuing money to the projects they fund. (The last report shows a $700k net
    profit).
  • Would be interested to see the actual financial cost of their donations, not just the “credits” they donate - I can’t otherwise understand how the 14 tonnes figure is achieved.

The Offset Earth website makes a claim that 85% of the donation goes to projects, but that in reality is donating that money to other charities who use it to fund other projects - so it’s not quite taking into account the other organisations costs / where your overall donation goes.

Somehow spent longer looking at this than I should have. Not intended as any commentary, other than I want to understand where my donation actually goes.

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Thanks for the taking the time to look into all of that! It’s very valuable information to have.

I did find that some of their figure breakdowns don’t get into specifics enough for my liking, but the effort for transparency is there so I do trust that my money is being used to do some good, without needing to do that research and work myself. I suspect they’re limited somewhat in their ability to present more exact figures, because they’re just not available from the projects themselves that they invest it in.

Quick edit: on their about page, they do say their financials will be publicly available soon, which is great!

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Yeah it’s a tricky balance right - just have to determine what that level off how much good vs how much admin am I paying for.

It’s interesting how transparent they are - they do have a page around their revenue (about £45k per month), and as you say, their financials coming soon - but yet I do find it a bit convoluted to understand what the money actually does.

I’ve been donating to the Woodland Trust for a while, who have a massive UK based initiative to replant forests. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/. If anyone is more interested in the Tree Planting side of Offset Earth - worth a look!

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Absolutely! Hopefully as they grow, they’ll be able to streamline the processes and provide that extra information in an easily digestible way.

I too have donated to the woodland trust from time to time! Fantastic charity.

I think the reason platforms like offset earth are gaining traction recently, is because you receive a nice digitalised feedback on what your money is doing, and it’s nice to see your virtual Forest grow over time of course. It’s gamification done right.

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I’ve been using them for a few months and it brilliant. I make extra donations when I can and I’ve got a forest going on in Madagascar now!

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Damn it! I literally spent two days last week planting actual trees - are you now telling me there was a way to do this from my bed without destroying my back? :man_facepalming:t3:

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Yup - just click https://offset.earth/danwoodhouse

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That’s a nice little forest you have growing there Dan!

I’d love to see something like this be able to integrate with something like Monzo, so roundups could be used to plant additional trees.

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:eyes::thinking:

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Yeah would be a good little feature something like that, I wonder if they have any usable APIs