Our Commitment to the Environment

Over the past decade we have been inundated with conflicting ideas on how humans are impacting our existence on earth.  Regardless of position one simple fact can be agreed to: Much of what we are doing is probably shortening our existence as a species.  Whether we are facing impending doom next week or have nothing to worry about for many decades, we should probably be cognizant of how we are treating the natural environment around us.  This topic will undoubtedly continue to be studied and thoroughly debated.

That said, how can a cycling tour company help things?  Well, we don’t have a good start.  We are in the business of encouraging people to jump on carbon spewing airplanes to then travel great distances in fossil fuel burning vans, and then burn large amounts of calories that need to be replaced by food that is likely not locally farmed.

What can we do? We offer all of our clients the option of buying carbon credits to offset the carbon created during a tour.  Outfitter Bicycle Tours has developed a relationship with 3Degrees Group, a leader in renewable energy credits and carbon credits, to deliver certified carbon credits from projects that result in real, quantifiable, permanent and additional greenhouse gas emission reductions that are third-party verified against objective, credible and transparent standards*.

What is a carbon credit?  See more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit

An average tour creates approximately 4.5 tons of carbon per person.  This includes the flight, land transport, electricity usage, and other carbon sources during a tour.  Therefore we offer to offset tours at $67.50 per tour.  This offer is a part of the tour registration process.

Where does the money go?  The general definition of a carbon credit is: A verified reductions in carbon that would not otherwise be created if it was not for the money from offset sales going to the carbon mitigating projects.  Our clients money goes directly to these projects that wouldn’t exits if it were not for funding through carbon credit sales.

The project that your money goes to is the Corinth Coal Mine Methane project.  This project consists of a methane capture system in an abandoned coal mine in rural Illinois. This system collects methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that would have otherwise escaped into the atmosphere.  The collected methane is injected into a nearby interstate gas pipeline, from which it is distributed to customers.

What else? We take it an additional step by offsetting our operations.  Evey year we calculate our output of carbon and purchase the required amount of offsets.  We realize that this does not eliminate all of the pollution that our tours create, but it is an important step in the right direction.

* – For more information please visit: http://www.3degreesinc.com/products/carbon-offsets