Why should I as an entrepreneur/school/authority/private individual/etc. calculate and offset my carbon footprint?

In short, nature provides us food, habitat, clean water and clear air to breathe every day. It is time to say thank you to nature by allowing it to exist and recover. This is how we take responsibility, stop climate change and save life on our planet.

The carbon footprint provides us with numbers to make our impact on the atmosphere tangible. By protecting a correspondingly large area of intact nature, we offset our emissions by preventing the release of vast amounts of CO2, preserving important forests functions for the climate, and safeguarding habitats and biodiversity.

In the global community, awareness and the need for action have long been at the top of the agenda. The 13th of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) therefore specifies that urgent action must be taken to combat climate change and its impacts. Goal #15 also states that terrestrial ecosystems must be urgently protected and their beneficial effects preserved. With our calculator and the associated compensation, you are contributing to two of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

Another advantage for you is that you receive our CO2-neutral sticker and can thus show in communication that you are leading by example, taking responsibility and acting sustainably.

The long explanation:

As inhabitants of the Earth, each of us consumes natural resources every day, leaving our mark on the planet: we purchase electricity, buy technology, travel, and heat our homes - all of which generate emissions that impact our atmosphere. In recent years, we have created so many emissions and protected so little nature that the climate is changing and ecosystems and life on our planet are threatened. Increasing weather extremes like floods and droughts, as well as the rapid loss of species, are clear indicators of this.

Yet we have the best ally - nature, which gives us resources, habitat, clean water and clear air to breathe every day. By saying thank you to nature and allow it to exist and recover, we can stop climate change.

Our emissions can be calculated and expressed in CO2 equivalents. This puts a figure on the impact of our human activities on the climate. Once we know our share, we can take responsibility for it and act to halt climate change and preserve habitats and biodiversity.

Not all emissions can be avoided. However, they can be offset, for example, by preserving intact nature, where large quantities of CO2 are stored. By protecting them tangibly and permanently, we prevent the release of stored CO2 and at the same time preserve valuable natural areas.