I just came across a green car insurance company in the UK. The Green Insurance Company promises that they will offset your cars carbon emissions by planting trees. I think it's a pretty amazing idea, and I wish more companies would offer something like this. I would personally be happy to pay a little more if I knew my money was going to bettering the planet.
From The Green Insurance Company:
Our offset project
Our initial project is a new forest being planted at St Cyrus near Montrose in Scotland. The site is called Milton of Mathers and can be found just off the A92. The site will cover 4.3 hectares and consists of different species including Oak, Birch and Ash. Our money has enabled the project to go ahead and gives us exclusive rights to use the forest for offsetting CO2 emissions. Although a voluntary project the scheme will be subject to rigid audit to ensure that it delivers on its contractual commitments and that the new forest is being properly managed. We have teamed up with Forest Carbon www.forest-carbon.co.uk to oversee this. The forest will have full access rights and anyone is free to visit it. You may even hug the trees if you so wish.
- 100% offset of your car’s emissions
- Up to a further 5% low emission discount if you drive a greener car and/or do lower mileage
- Insure with a company who is environmentally responsible
- 5% of our profits are donated to charity – helping others
This post was written by Stefanie.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Wow, if I had a car I would want this! The Brits do seem to be ahead of us on lots of green stuff.
Quote This CommentJune 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Jen, I want it, too! It's too bad it's only in the UK...
Quote This CommentAugust 24th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I'm still wondering, just how "green" is that. Raising this tree to the stage where it can be planted in the wild, transportation, cultivation, etc -- has anyone coundted the carbon footprint of that?
The real green insurance is the one that either refuses to insure "classical American", oil-hogging, carbon dioxide-spewing cars at all or charges insane rates for that.
Quote This CommentAugust 28th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Classic, that is a good point about the tree. Don't a lot of oil-hogging cars, such as SUVs, trucks, etc. have high insurance due to rollover risk?
Quote This CommentOctober 13th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Nice review Stefanie, there are several companies now offering green car insurance in the UK.
Hopefully the US will soon follow suit. I recently blogged about some of the companies offering these policies in the UK to compare what they had to offer.
Here's the post if you'd like to read it: http://the-car-insurance-blog.blogspot.com/2008/09/green-car-insurance-good-idea.html
Personally I think green car insurance could be a really good thing, they just have to make sure the policies are competitvely priced as many households are struggling financially at the moment.
Quote This CommentOctober 20th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Daniel, thank you for the link to that article! I, too, hope more companies in the US will make more of an effort. Right now it seems they are claiming "green," but not doing a whole lot to prove it.
Quote This CommentNovember 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
This should be mandatory for all insurance companies. If the government makes them plant trees for each gas car they insure, there will be two outcomes at least: 1) more forests on our planet and 2) insurance companies will start to invest money in environment friendly technologies to boost progress in zero pollution auto industry (for instance: electric cars), which will eventually allow them to reduce costs on forest planting.
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