The following guest blog post was written and provided by our partners SFE Energy.
Do you know you can offset your carbon footprint from your daily electricity and gas consumption?
We often talk about our carbon footprints, and their collective impact on the environment, but we typically don’t have the means to reduce our personal contribution to carbon emissions in many significant ways. Did you know that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 0.005 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) are emitted per therm of natural gas burned? Electricity usage in your home emits 1.341 pounds (lbs) of CO2 per kWh, on average. Most of the electricity generated in the U.S. comes from fossil fuels, sources that are non-renewable and emit harmful by-products.
SFE Earth Save programs, Green Electricity and Eco Gas, provide homeowners with an easy way to do their part to help the environment, right here in the U.S. SFE customers can take environmental action by choosing a carbon offset program, for their gas and/or electricity commodity use, and also feel good about the protected supply price they get too, for their energy needs. A Green Electricity customer who signs on to a three-year program with SFE, will get 100 percent of their carbon output offset, while receiving a protected electricity supply price for three years. An SFE customer who signs on to a three-year Eco Gas program, will get 1.5 tonnes* of their average household carbon output offset, while receiving a protected gas supply price for three years. *Eco Gas footprint tonnage is dependent upon household.
Making a positive environmental change is a high priority for SFE. To date, SFE and its affiliates have offset more than 302,349 tonnes of CO2 from customers. When our energy customers opt for our Earth Save programs, SFE offsets the carbon emissions that their homes create, from natural gas and electricity use. We have developed many rewarding green relationships to make our Earth Save products available to consumers. We purchase carbon offsets on behalf of our SFE customers by investing in North American, verified projects like: Reforestation, Methane Gas Capture and Biomass Conversion.
SFE is also very proud to have a long-standing partnership with American Forests. For our 2015 Earth Save customers, American Forests will be planting 37,972 trees on their behalf. Currently, carbon sequestration by plants offset 16.2 percent of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation and energy sectors.
SFE Energy and its affiliates currently operate in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California. We are now planning to launch our services in Ohio this summer and are proud to relay our commitment to make America a healthier and greener place to live, by reducing our collective carbon footprint, one Earth Save customer at a time.
Want to start offsetting your carbon footprint from your daily electricity and gas consumption? Contact our friendly Customer Service staff, via email or phone: cs@sfeenergy.com | 1-877-316-6344
https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources.html: Greenhouse gas emission by Economic Sector in 2014: Commercial & Residential 12%; Agricultural 9%; Electricity 30%; Industry: 21%; Transportation 26%; Total US Emissions in 2014 = 6,870 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents (MMtCO2E)
CO2 offset by land use and forestry = 11% of total = 6,870 x 0.11 = 755.7 MMtCO2E
Transportation, electricity, and residential sectors = 68% of total emissions = 6,870 x 0.68 = 4,671.6 MMtCO2E
Offset due to plants relative to these three sectors = 755.7 MMtCO2E / 4671.6 MMtCO2E x 100 = 16.2%