Aug 7, 2008

Offsetting Your Rental Car's Carbon

Do you want the collision and comprehensive insurance? How about the carbon offset? Forgive us if we are cynical in suspecting that the new carbon offset campaign announced by Avis Budget Group, the parent company of Avis Rent A Car and Budget Rent A Car, is largely “green” PR. Its recently announced alliance with Carbonfund organization online, an international nonprofit organization that provides carbon offsets to individuals and businesses, will enable the company to offer its corporate and retail customers a variety of carbon offset options to enable them to minimize the carbon dioxide impact of their daily, weekly or monthly vehicle rentals, which, depending upon whom you ask, may or may not have real impact on climate change. 

Customers of Avis and Budget will be able to make donations to Carbonfund organization online to offset the emissions from their rental car use as a separate transaction from their vehicle rental. The donations go towards the ongoing purchase of carbon offset credits, which fund a variety of environmental projects aimed at reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.

The alliance with Carbonfund organization online adds to other environmental initiatives of Avis Budget Group, which is already partnering with its corporate customers to assist them with their individual carbon-reduction targets. Avis Budget is also creating a formal environmental management system, which is being designed to measure and manage environmental aspects of its operations in accordance with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 guidelines. The plan will cover air, water and land quality issues, landfill contributions, resource depletion and conservation, solid/liquid waste, odor/noise emissions and other environmental aspects.