greenfly cardon off-set

[SpeedbirdXK8]

Does anyone know more about the GreenFly carbon off set program offerd by Emery Little. They appear to be an insurance broker but pay to off set the carbon foot print of your aircraft.

[Captain Smithy]

Methinks anyone considering to "offset their Carbon emissions" would be better off chucking sizeable wads of money down the crapper.

Load of mince.:rolleyes:

Smithy

[englishal]

I'll offset your carbon. Just send me a few thousand pounds every year, and I promise to plant a tree for you.....honest....

[SpeedbirdXK8]

Sorry guys but you have all missed the point or perhaps I didn't explain but according to their website (insuring.aero) they pay the cost.:ok:

[airborne_artist]

I didn't explain but according to their website (insuring.aero) they pay the cost.

But where do you think they get the money from? Does it grow on the trees they plant? :E

[SpeedbirdXK8]

The money comes out of the commission earnt when they place the insurance. The scheme is verified and supported by the BBGA. I have spoken with them and they are happy to discuss and explain. I suggest anyone with a curious mind should speak to the MD who's name is Nik Little. Why be cynical without knowing the facts:bored: Whether one believes the environment agrument or not, surely under the present (and unlikely to go away) spot light on aviation such schemes that help the 'image' of the industry is a good time and more so if it is free. I would agree with the 'con' view if they were asking you to out your hand in your pocket aka the Government, all the airlines etc etc. As to premium price I think you'll find they are competitive and go the extra mile, happy to spend time talking.

[Xoxon]

The reason that offsetting makes a difference and is important is that is raises the value of the carbon sequestration asset - let me put it this way:
You are an African guy with a block of land and the options to
a. chop down all the trees and grow some food
b. retain the trees (deforestation is a massive cause of relative Carbon emissions and is probably the cheapest improvement, along with efficiency) by leasing them to someone in the UK for muchos money, and buying food instead.

The trees are worth more to us than to him so if we pay him, they can be retain otherwise, he will chop them down as the Carbon effect is external to the market from his point of view.

Offsetting and Carbon trading markets internalise the cost of pollution into the relevant markets so that the price of polluting activities increases, less of this activity takes place and there is an economic incentive to improve the environmental performance of the activity. This means rate of deforestation slows (good thing).

Make sense?

[airborne_artist]

But how is the scheme monitored? I'm an African with a forest. I'd like to chop it down, but along you come with $XX to pay me to keep it as forest. You give me the money. I sell the land. What's to stop the new owner chopping down the forest, and how can you recoup the payment from me after the event?

[Xoxon]

There are all kinds of certification bodies working to offer this security and legitimacy - it is all fairly dodgy at the moment, doubtless with a fair bit of double counting.

To answer your question, through the lease, I'd control the forest. The African farmer would have no more right to chop it down than he would to grow food in my London apartment.

Have a think about this then - to produce an offset and sell it into the market, I have to prove what they refer to as "additionally" ie that the project wouldn't have happened anyway. The African guy may have been intending to retain the trees anyway. More generally, they assess the risk adjusted return on investment in the scheme, and if it is worse than prevailing levels, it is a safe assumption that the investment would not have been made except to produce the offset and there for is "additional" and a legitimate offset.

My mate down the street might decide is it a sensible decision to insulate his loft (it pays back in 3 years - that is a good return on investment) but I guarantee you, my clients that are spending £6M on bioethanol fuel cells for their new data centre are only doing it because of the tradeable value of the zero Carbon electricity. Yep, you guessed it, once they sell these valuable "ROCs (renewable obligation credits)" to a power producer with a legal requirement to do a certain proportion green power (they buy their way out - our project offsets this requirement of them), they are no longer able to claim that the data centre is zero Carbon. You can't have you cake and eat it - this would be double counting.

Early days for all this yet, but I bet the first guy that heard about tax thought at the time that it was pretty unlikely that a government could track his personal affairs and impose such a thing. The Carbon frameworks and markets have evolved rapidly and will be more commonly understood in a few years.

Moral of the story? Buy trees and biofuel production capacity.
I can't wait until the slow slow GA system organises us bioethanol engines so we don't have to offset anything. Think Champ cars or alcohol drag cars. Yeah! Sustainable! You can't drink it though. It is denatured in Customs :(

[Xoxon]

This is a poke at the moral issue of offsetting your behavior. A real operation though!
http://www.cheatneutral.com/

[tadley171]

Interesting comments on this thread, it was enough to make me go and look at the sites mentioned which led me to the BBGA site which has some interesting comments at www.bbga.aero/pressreleases/PressReleaseLEACarbon.pdf (http://www.bbga.aero/pressreleases/PressReleaseLEACarbon.pdf)

Surely this issue is not going to go away no matter what peoples personal views are or how varied they may be. Just see what's happening today with T5 and Mr Brown.

[Xoxon]

LEA have ordered 10 of the new Mustang jets haven't they? I think the first one is there already.

[SpeedbirdXK8]

re Mustang: yes it is. See this months Loop.

I take it from comments that as a community we are not interested in Carbon Neutral flying or is GreenFly ahead of its time?? Or am I mssing the point?

I do love pprune, always a balanced agrument!

Watch out for the protests today when the 380 lands at LHR.

[lauchiemb]

Mr 'Speedbird'

In your initial question you ask whether anyone knows anything about this company called Emery Little.

It would appear that you seem to know more about them than anyone else! If I didn't know better I would suspect that you were actually just trying to throw your mate Mr Little some of our business. Or maybe, shock horror, you are Mr Little!

[SpeedbirdXK8]

lauchiemb: you are correct as to my initial question and since posting I have been looking into the matter further and have posed the question to my flying buddies off-site of pprune.

In view of the fact the issue will never go away I thought an off-set program aimed at GA, at no cost to the owner, traceable etc would be welcomed by the industry but it appears not to be the case. I was interested in the view of a wider audience and throw out comments to gauge opinion.

To dispell any ugly rummors I am not Mr Little nor am I a Hack.

[PompeyPaul]

Looking at the sky high oil prices, the fact that most refineries in the world are already at full production, it can't be long before we finally run out of oil.

Then there'll be nothing to worry about. It feels we're so close to the end of oil that all of this carbon footprint offseting stuff is a waste of time. We'll all go green, whether we like it or not. Petrol in 2100 ? Unlikely....

Better build those hours now whilst you can.....