Your Choices

With NativeEnergy, you can fight global warming two ways

Helping Build New Projects:

We pioneered a unique approach to carbon offsets that fixes a market failure that is stalling development of smaller, distributed projects. Here's how it works:

1. We work with projects under development that need additional revenues from the sale of their carbon or offsets to get financed and built or to operate successfully. These projects are financed on a long-term basis, so they generally need to know that they'll have these extra revenues on a long-term basis. The problem is that virtually no one in the voluntary retail market is offering long-term carbon purchase contracts. That leaves many of these projects unable to secure financing (so why are wind farms getting built?).

2. We commit to these projects that if they proceed with development, when they achieve and demonstrate successful operations, we will purchase and pay up front for all the carobon or other offsets their project is conservatively estimated to generate over its operating life. Instead of providing higher revenues over time to repay their extra investment costs, our up-front purchase reduces their up-front need for equity or loans so they don't need the extra revenues over time, making the project profitable enough to be built. The projects get what they need, without anyone having to make an unwanted long-term commitment. How do you know it will keep operating?

3. You make a difference by buying a share of the project's conservatively estimated long-term RECs or offsets output, and collectively our customers buy it all. That way no one has to take the risk that the RECs or offsets will all be purchased over time, at the price the project needs - they're all purchased up front. As the projects really need the extra revenues, and our customers provide them, each of our customers has a direct and immediate impact in bringing a new project on line - while still building "market demand" for others. But what if the project fails to come on line anyway?

4. To claim the RECs or offsets as making up for your current-year energy use, you need to make sure that they will be retired as they are generated. That's why our customers let us donate their carbon offsets to Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP), an independent non-profit 501(c)(3), who commits to retire them as they are generated. CA-CP's role is like a land trust that you would donate land to for conservation, if you didn't want it developed.

5. CA-CP will retire for you 100% of the carbon offsets your share of your project generates. The actual amount, however, is conservatively estimated, so it may be more or fewer than we predict, although we do give the environment, and so our customers, the benefit of overall portfolio performance so over-performing projects can balance out any given project. Learn more about our portfolio promise. The carbon offsets will be generated over the life of the project as well. But isn't that better than the project failing in development due to lack of adequate funding, and never generating them at all? We think so, and so do our many fans. In addition, the generation over time really isn't much different from the real impact of buying current vintage carbon offsets.

Supporting Operating New Projects:

In short, your choice is simple: