Rental Car Group Signs Up 175,000 Customers for Carbon Offsets

April 7, 2009

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More than 175,000 rental car customers have participated in a carbon offset program offered by Alamo Rent A Car, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and National Car Rental, all owned by the Taylor family of St. Louis, since the program’s launch in 2007.

In the program’s first year, approximately 175,000 Alamo, Enterprise and National customers paid $1.25 per rental to participate, generating $220,000 for offset projects. The companies matched the contribution, generating nearly $440,000. This is part of the companies’ commitment to match customers’ offset purchases up to $1 million.

By opting in to pay $1.25 per rental, customers fund several certified offset projects that remove CO2 from the atmosphere including farm power projects that turn animal waste into electricity, and gas-capture projects that trap and destroy methane gas produced by landfills. TerraPass manages the certified offset projects funded by these voluntary contributions.

As a result of these contributions, more than 42,000 metric tons of carbon have been offset by the program. Based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, that’s equivalent to saving 4.8 million gallons of gasoline and 98,000 barrels of oil.

Enterprise-Rent-A-Car also recently expanded its Atlanta Rideshare program to help further reduce vehicle emissions and traffic congestion.

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Reader Comments

Carbon offsets are only a way to make Al Gore rich – he sells them & to get green credits those companies are starving African families by throwing them off their family farms to plant eucalyptus trees – we could meet 2050 Kyoto levels by building nuclear power plants & putting pollution control filters etc on existing coal fired electric power & industrial plants

Hugh | April 8th, 2009

Going green is the way to go in the long run. It is our Earth, it is our home. Love it!

Good move by the rental companies