Article
New kiosks at San Francisco airport help travelers help the environment
The international hub's unique Climate Passport program offers carbon offsets that it says counteract a flight's effect on climate change – but it has its critics.
November 4, 2009
When the greenhouse gas emissions caps mandated by California bill AB32 take effect, certain businesses in the state will be required to make carbon-reduction efforts.
The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has decided to initiate eco-friendly actions before it becomes mandatory, however, and now offers travelers a kiosk program and a Web application through which they can purchase carbon offsets to neutralize the environmental effect of their flights.
Concern about commerce's influence on the environment is a growing movement, evidenced by green-themed advertisements and buzz about cap-and-trade legislation. Tania Sole, of California carbon-offset provider Greenslip Inc., says projects like SFO's will become more popular along with it.
"What you are starting to find is organizations that are putting these offerings into ATM-style booths at facilities worldwide and, in particular, airports such as SFO," Sole said.
SFO's program, Climate Passport, offers capabilities similar to those provided by Sole's Greenslip. Using the application, at one of the airport's three Climate Passport kiosks, which are manufactured by IER, travelers can enter specific information about their flights to calculate their carbon footprint, or they can choose their purchase based on the typical carbon footprint of a flight, depending on its approximate length in miles.
Steve McDougal, executive vice president of marketing and business development for San Francisco-based 3Degrees, says the value of a flyer's carbon footprint is calculated based on standards from the World Resources Institute and the United Nations panel on climate change. 3Degrees worked with SFO to develop the kiosk's user interface (based on Kioware's software platform), and the company sources the carbon offsets purchased to a local environmental program known as the Garcia River Forest Project, McDougal says.
"This is a property where it's a mature forest that has been protected and is, instead of all getting cut down, is sustainably managed," he said. "So there's very limited logging, but it's managed to enhance the greenhouse gas reduction capabilities."
McDougal says 3Degrees and SFO wanted the program to contribute to the Garcia River project primarily because it's a local initiative, and he thinks most people appreciate the environmental impact.
"We felt that the Garcia River project was a great one because for one thing, people generally understand that forests are important in dealing with pollution issues in general, but also more specifically, in dealing with climate change. Many people know that forests serve as a carbon sink," he said. "The second is that, even though climate change is definitely a global issue, this is a project that's located in California, so given the number of people who are California-based going through SFO, we thought that was important."
Representatives for SFO did not return multiple calls for comment, but according to the environmental statement on the airport's Web site, "The airport is committed to drastically reducing its environmental impact over the next decade. We're working to reduce our contributions to global warming, improve air and water quality, reduce noise impacts and preserve natural resources."
What's in a price?
McDougal knows some people are skeptical of programs that ask for their money to help the environment, and even more so, he knows many people are simply uneducated about what carbon offsets are, how they are calculated and how they help.
Upon the SFO's announcement of the Climate Passport program, blogger Anthony Watts compared the values the airports charges Climate Passport users with those of a carbon financial instrument (CFI) on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a carbon-offset trading mechanism for businesses. The blogger found that SFO priced a ton of carbon at 60 times the .20 price per ton on the CCX, but McDougal says the assessment is unfair.
"The blogger is right, in that the participants in CCX can technically buy their carbon tons for .10 or .20 cents. But you've got to stop and ask yourself," he said, "What good are those .10 or .20-cent purchases doing to reduce greenhouse gases? And the answer is absolutely nothing."
Moreoever, he says, comparing the program with prices on the CCX is misleading, he says, since it's a tool businesses use to trade their excess carbon "allowances." In other words, of course the carbon offsets will be extremely cheap, because there is a large surplus of them, and companies want an inexpensive way to take advantage.
"It's something that's taken on a life of its own because one or two bloggers compare, not even an apple to an orange, it's an apple to a seed for a nectarine. There's just nothing there, when you really look at it," McDougal said.
While he says $1.50 of every Climate Passport contribution goes to the San Francisco Department of the Environment and 3Degrees retains a "very small" percentage to cover its costs, McDougal believes the Climate Passport prices are very comparable to those other airlines charge for Web-based carbon-offset offers.
"The fact that all these other programs are in this $13, $14, $15 range, and this blogger is citing something that's .10, that should really tell you that there's something wrong in their comparison," he said. "If you compare this price considering the quality of standard that's being involved and the quality of the project that's involved, as well as the very, very small increments that are being purchased at any one time, I would stand that price up against anything I've seen."
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