Greenopia recently released a comprehensive ranking of the top ten Carbon Offset companies for mitigating personal climate impact produced by flying, driving, and from household energy consumption. Topping the list are TerraPass and EnPalo.  Carbon Offsets have been under fire in recent years due to questions surrounding their overall effectiveness and transparency to the public. With over a billion tons of offsets being purchased each year, consumers are looking for a company they can trust. The entire carbon offset ranking results are at Greenopia.

Greenopia used a comprehensive set of criteria to determine the rankings. Data was collected from the companies pertaining to the offset projects, the accuracy/relevance of their carbon calculator, whether or not the projects were audited by a third party, and the company’s transparency. Weights were set based on the relative importance of the criteria to consumers when purchasing carbon offsets. Greenopia also tracked which standards each offset used and how each company approached the concept of additionality.

“The notion of additionality is often poorly understood when buying carbon offsets. It’s often very difficult to determine whether or not the sequestration project would actually occur without the money raised from selling the individual offsets,” says Gay Browne, Founder of Greenopia.

See Greenopia’s list of the top ten carbon offset companies below.  Click on the company name to view each carbon offset company’s scorecard.

1. TerraPass
2. EnPalo
3. CarbonFund
4. Native Energy
5. 3 Degrees
6. Chicago Climate Exchange
7. e-Blue Horizons
8. Standard Carbon
9. Versus Carbon Neutral
10. LiveNeutral

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Author: Tracey de Morsella (323 Articles)

Tracey de Morsella started her career working as an editor for US Technology Magazine. She used that experience to launch Delaware Valley Network, a publication for professionals in the Greater Philadelphia area. Years later, she used the contacts and resources she acquired to work in executive search specializing in technical and diversity recruitment. She has conducted recruitment training seminars for Wachovia Bank, the Department of Interior and the US Postal Service. During this time, she also created a diversity portal called The Multicultural Advantage and published the Diversity Recruitment Advertising Toolkit, a directory of recruiting resources for human resources professionals. Her career and recruitment articles have appeared in numerous publications and web portals including Woman Engineer Magazine, Monster.com, About.com Job Search Channel, Workplace Diversity Magazine, Society for Human Resource Management web site, NSBE Engineering Magazine, HR.com, and Human Resource Consultants Association Newsletter. Her work with technology professionals drew her to pursuing training and work in web development, which led to a stint at Merrill Lynch as an Intranet Manager. In March, she decided to combine her technical and career management expertise with her passion for the environment, and with her husband, launched The Green Economy Post, a blog providing green career information and covering the impact of the environment, sustainable building, cleantech and renewable energy on the US economy. Her sustainability articles have appeared on Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operation, Chem.Info,FastCompany and CleanTechies.