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Land Rover's CO2 offset: does it work?
By
Green news
20 December 2007 16:26
Manufacturers like Land Rover claim to offset the CO2 from so-called gas guzzlers. But is this just PR posturing – or a credible attempt to cancel out the damage from their cars’ greenhouse gases? These CO2 offset programmes are all to do with the much-talked about carbon footprint - the trail of unwanted carbon dioxide or CO2 emitted through the burning of fossil fuels.
Many car makers are signed-up - in one form or another - to do their bit to save the planet. Not only are they now producing new cars which are cleaner and more fuel efficient than ever before, they are collectively sinking billions of pounds into global projects which are designed specifically to help the environment.
What, in particular, can they do?
Well, we recently witnessed just one of the projects which are being run. Land Rover is sponsoring several worldwide programmes, the one we saw was in Uganda. The forests in that part of the world are vanishing at an alarming rate due to the high demand for charcoal to cook with. The majority of the population rely on wood and charcoal for cooking - electric and LPG cookers are way beyond the means of most Ugandans. It takes ten tonnes of lumber to produce just ten large sacks of charcoal. By giving the locals more efficient stoves should slow down the deforestation.
