CO2 Offsets Terms & Conditions: When You Offset Your CO2 with NativeEnergy, When you offset your CO2 with NativeEnergy, NativeEnergy will purchase on your behalf the rights to all of the carbon offsets to be generated by the projects identified in the table below, in the proportion specified in the table. For each ton you purchase, you will be allocated the renewable energy credit output of a portion of the project's electricity generating capacity over a fixed long-term period equal to its expected operating life, or until a certain performance level is achieved, as specified below.
* This blend of projects will be used to fulfill purchases associated with the Green Inaugural Ball until 1000 tons are sold. Thereafter, Green Inaugural Ball sales will be sourced from our standard web-based sources.
Donation to Clean Air - Cool Planet. When you offset with our "help build" carbon offsets, you are purchasing the rights to a long-term stream of carbon offsets. To have them offset your current CO2 footprint, you need to make sure that your carbon offsets are never sold to someone else later. That's why we donate all our customers' carbon offsets to Clean Air-Cool Planet, for retirement. CA-CP has agreed with us that it will accept our customers carbon offsets, and that it will not sell or otherwise transfer them, or use them, for any purpose, except to the extent necessary or advisable under applicable law to effect their retirement, such as transfer to a duly constituted government agency for retirement. CA-CP has authorized us to make this representation to you on its behalf. If you purchase carbon offsets from us and donate them to CA-CP through us in reliance on that representation, the representation becomes an enforceable legal obligation. Our agreement with Clean Air - Cool Planet obligates us to convey to it legal title to the carbon offsets our customers donate, and obligates Clean Air - Cool Planet to send an electronic acknowledgement of receipt to each of our customers who provides us an e-mail address, and to mail an acknowledgement to each customer who does not provide an e-mail address and who purchases and donates more than $200 of offsets per purchase. In addition, our agreement with Clean Air - Cool Planet gives them the right to audit our business records, to make sure that we're performing our obligations. Clean Air - Cool Planet is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit environmental organization.
Project Construction. The project or projects to which we allocate your purchase will begin operations by the applicable “Operations by” date specified above. Part of actually helping build new renewable energy projects is committing to them in their early stages of development, when some uncertainties remain. So if the conditions for our purchase of your project’s RECs are not met, or if your project(s) is not built with NativeEnergy’s support for any reason, your purchase price will help build an alternate project within 9 months following the applicable “Operations by” date shown above, either from our current portfolio of projects or a project that we add to our portfolio. We have relationships with a number of developers who have suitable projects in the early stages of development and that could really use our customers’ support. You'll still own, and donate, all the RECs, or other offsets to be generated by a share of the alternate project(s)’ generating capacity, adjusted for expected generation and expected operating life to produce at least your chosen number of tons of CO2 or CO2-equivalent emissions reductions over its expected operating life, according to our estimating methodology. If we are unable to accomplish this, we will make up any shortfall by acquiring carbon offsets from other sources, in an amount equal to your purchase, and will donate them to Clean Air-Cool Planet on your behalf. We’ll give you written notice of the alternate project that you’ll be helping to build, which may be in our newsletter, as well as new estimates of the quantity of RECs or other carbon offsets purchased and donated in your name. Project Operations. The project owners/operators have agreed with us that they will use commercially reasonable efforts to build their project and, once it achieves commercial operations, to operate it for the duration of its Delivery Term specified above. They've also agreed to perform all manufacturer-recommended maintenance and commercially reasonable repair, and to maintain adequate insurance. We also conservatively discount each project’s expected performance to a level that we are confident that the projects we help build will perform - on average - as well or better than we estimated to our customers. So, while we cannot guarantee that every project will generate all the carbon offsets we estimated, our conservative discounting enables us to guarantee that if any given project fails, by the end of its Delivery Term, to achieve the carbon offsetting performance level we estimated it would, we will retire additional carbon offsets from: (i) that project’s performance following the end of its Delivery Term, if available (by extending the Delivery Term until the estimate performance level is achieved); or (ii) the output of other projects in our portfolio that are supplying offsets on an up-front, long-term basis, to the extent that their performance during their Delivery Terms exceeds our estimates, including only: (a) those projects that first entered our portfolio after November 28, 2007; and (b) generating capacity of projects not already allocated to existing customers as of November 28, 2007. As such, all projects are subject to having their over-production, if any, during their Delivery Terms re-allocated to make up for under-production by any other project in our portfolio. Any RECs/offsets comprising such over-production that is not so re-allocated will be retired. Our Emissions Reductions Estimates are Estimates Only. We estimate that delivery to the grid of the electricity associated with the kilowatts of generating capacity allocated to you, as applicable, will prevent the emission of the number of tons of CO2 you have chosen to offset, as detailed in our estimating methodology. Things will change, however. Wind speeds vary, for example, and the system mix of power will change, but not exactly in the conservative way we have assumed. There's nothing we can do about that, so the actual CO2 emissions reductions generated by your projects will vary from our estimates, up or down. We will, however, be receiving ongoing meter data from your projects that will tell us exactly how much electricity your project generates. With this information, we'll use the most recent data on the Environmental Protection Agency's E-Grid database to generate updated estimates of how much CO2 that electricity kept out of the air. We'll post that information in our projects descriptions and include it in your NativeEnergy newsletter. In addition, the CO2 reducing impact of the electricity the projects generate may be subject to changes in law. See our risks and benefits section to learn more. For farm methane projects, we will be receiving information regarding farm operations from each farm not less than annually, and will post updates to our estimates of the amounts of methane abated (in CO2-equivalents) and the CO2 reducing impact of the project’s displacement of fossil fuel use. Billing. If you choose our monthly payment plan, we will continue to bill your credit card each month until you cancel. Your first 12 monthly payments will be dedicated to paying for your share of REC's from the project you chose to help build. If you cancel before making all 12 payments, we will simply allocate to you a proportionately smaller share of its generating capacity, based on the number of payments you’ve made. Your next 12 payments will be dedicated to helping finance a different new project. We will endeavor to allocate customers to the same project typed (i.e., wind, farm methane, or 50/50). You can always learn what project you’re monthly payments are helping build by checking our current terms and conditions at www.nativeenergy.com/terms_conditions.html, sending us an e-mail at support@nativeenergy.com or calling our toll-free number. If it isn’t a project you want to help build, just let us know by sending us an e-mail at support@nativeenergy.com or calling our toll-free number. We’ll either switch you to a different project or cancel your purchases, whichever you prefer. We will continue your purchases from year to year on these terms until you cancel. If you choose our upfront payment option, we will not automatically bill you again next year, although we will ask you to renew your purchase at that time.
Other Legal Provisions. EXCEPT AS SET FORTH EXPRESSLY IN THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, NATIVEENERGY MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER IMPLIED OR EXPRESS, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE (this disclaimer may not apply in your state). All our estimates regarding the quantity of emissions reductions represented by your RECs are subject to changes in law. Learn more about the risks and benefits. In no event shall either party be liable to the other party for indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages of any kind, including, without limitation, loss of revenues or profits. All damages shall be limited to actual damages only. The agreement set forth in these terms and conditions shall be governed by, and construed and enforced in accordance with, the laws of the State of Vermont, without regard to its provisions governing conflicts of laws. Any dispute arising under this agreement shall be subject to mandatory arbitration in accordance with the rules of the American Arbitration Association, and the arbitrator's decision shall be final and binding upon the parties. All information included on the web pages or pop-ups linked to in these terms and conditions is incorporated into these terms and conditions by this reference, with the same effect as though fully set forth herein. If you have questions about our terms and conditions, please contact us at info@nativeenergy.com or call (800) 924-6826. | ||||||||||||||||||