My introduction to carbon offsets came in the form of a Christmas present to my parents. My uncle bought my father a Terrapass for his sturdy old Volvo wagon. “This car’s C02 offset by Terrapass,” it read, plastered to the bumper.

As the idea of mandatory cap-and-trade is argued on Capitol Hill, many people remain unaware of the current voluntary carbon market. There are offset solutions for almost anything that emits CO2; however, not all offset products can be trusted.
The carbon offset industry saw a surge of growth from 2005 to 2007, but as the economy grew more unstable, people began to worry less about their carbon footprint and more about keeping their jobs and paying their bills.

But not all the news is bad for the carbon market. After the 2008 presidential election, carbon offset sales rose significantly, helping the worldwide market end the year with $118 billion dollars worth of emissions transactions. According to SBI analysts, the worldwide carbon market is expected to grow 68 percent annually until 2013 to $669 billion dollars. This calculation assumes that the United States will adopt a federal cap-and-trade program, so this level of success is dependent on American action.

In the 1990s, there were no concrete standards to guide the research process. One had to do a lot of digging. Today, consumers have “green-e certification” to issue a stamp of approval, making the buying of offsets more comfortable.

Green-e certification is a stamp of approval from the Center for Resource Solutions, a nonprofit organization that makes sure that offset customers get what they pay for. Specifically, they ensure that companies do not over-sell their renewable generation capacity, and that sellers disclose more information about their offset projects. It keeps the sellers who choose this third-party certification honest.

Buying offsets is easy. Most offset companies have the same process online. You choose what you’d like to set off–the emissions from your car, your air travel, your home’s electricity usage or even specific appliances. You plug in your miles traveled or kWh used, and the site generates an offset solution for you. The whole transaction takes less than 10 minutes.

Many businesses and institutions advertise that they are “carbon neutral”. Most of these claims are backed up not by massive investments in on-site renewable generation, but by massive quantities of carbon offsets.

My college went carbon neutral my senior year. We had an array of solar panels, but it was not enough to supply all the school’s power needs. So, the rest of the college’s usage was offset. The decision was expensive, but most everyone supported the measure—even if we couldn’t get completely off traditional power, we could support emerging sustainable technology. So, the school bought enough wind power to cancel out the carbon emissions the institution was responsible for.

Many people have criticized carbon offsets as being little more than a penance made by lazy environmentalists who are not willing to appropriately change their lifestyle. But, try as we might, very few of us can lead a truly zero carbon life style. Modern life has certain demands that require a ride in a car, power for a computer and a trip in an airplane. A voluntary offset market has its place: It prepares consumers for a system in which pollution has real costs, and natural resources are given additional and concrete value.

Culturally, we are all dependent on convenience. The root of our addiction to dirty fuel is ease of use: The infrastructure is already set up, and the system works well in that consumers get what they need without having to put in much effort. You flip a switch. You pull a lever. You swipe your credit card. Only the most prudent among us track our individual miles and kWh. So, offsets present themselves as being very agreeable to the American lifestyle. Just plug in your usage, enter your credit card number, and hit submit. That’s it.

The convenience also draws some criticism, as some people think it’s misleading to call something or someone carbon neutral when behavior has not been completely changed. Some reporters have written that we cannot ignore that when polluting in one place, planting trees or building clean electric generation somewhere else doesn’t fix the problem. Others have said that whether or not these projects really mitigate climate change is difficult to prove. These dissenting opinions should not be discarded. It’s important to recognize these shortcomings when building the future of green business.

Leaders in several respected institutions endorse carbon offsets. The USGBC’s LEED standards incorporate offsets into its credits system. The EPA offers advice on how to choose offsets, and even the Harvard Business Review sees strategic value in offset early adoption. But offsets are not a long-term, silver-bullet solution.

The scientific community has told us that in order to mitigate climate change, we must slash emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. We will not be able reach this goal through voluntary carbon offsets alone.

Put simply, we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that buying an offset washes our hands of any other responsibility. However, offsets can help in ushering in the emergence of the real goal: a viable, self-sustaining eco-economy that won’t need donations to succeed. The transition will be tricky to plan, and not without some difficult changes. But in time, it will just be the way we do business. We just need to get there sooner rather than later.

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Elizabeth Crenshaw is LEED accredited and works for EPB in Strategic Planning. Originally from South Carolina, Elizabeth moved to Chattanooga after graduating from Warren Wilson College in 2007.