Some consumers might feel eco-guilt about the takeout containers they have been throwing away or the additional packages they have been shipping from Amazon . Offsets are emerging as a way for people to mitigate the effects of shopping, shipping and travel.
There is no way to take back the carbon you have put in the air through activities such as driving your car or heating your house, and the surest way to reduce your carbon footprint is to drive, fly or buy less. Carbon offsets, created about 20 years ago, claim to provide a way for consumers and institutions to balance out their carbon footprint by investing in environmental projects that remove carbon-dioxide emissions from—or avoid adding them to—the atmosphere.
