Brighter Planet - A Greener Way to Reward Credit Card Purchases
Many of us obsessively use one or two credit cards to hoard miles on our favorite airline or earn reward points for future purchases. Now, thanks to Brighter Planet you can reward Mother Earth with every purchase you make.
Brighter Planet, the brainchild of two college students and their economics professor at Middlebury College, ties carbon offset credits to credit card purchases. The interactive website lets users enter as much or as little personal information as they want and calculate their carbon footprint. The site can be updated manually, based on changes in activity and is automatically updated monthly based on carbon offsets earned using the Brighter Planet credit card.
It took me just a few minutes to set up a profile, which admittedly is not as comprehensive as other calculators available as it is based on averages by zip code and doesn’t include things like type of heating system and amount of public transportation used. But still, it’s a start.
Every $1000 dollars spent, using the Brighter Planet credit card, funds an estimated 1 ton of carbon offsets, roughly equivalent to taking a car off the road for 2,000 miles, or powering and heating/cooling a typical home for a month. Carbon offsets are supplied by Native Energy, a Vermont neighbor and leader in suppling carbon offsets. Projects are approved by an in house board and include development of renewable energy sources like wind turbines and methane abatement programs.
Started in 2005, following the Environmental Economics class in which the idea was born, the two students, Jake Whitcomb and Andy Rossmeisel joined forces with the professor, Jon Isham and set up shop in a two room office. Using their network of Vermont neighbors (like Native Energy http://www.nativeenergy.com/ ) and personal contacts, they set up an advisory board of heavy hitters, garnered seed money and attracted venture capital.
Key to their success is their early networking to bring on well connected and smart partners, often leaders in the environmental movement. Their unique concept attracted financial Goliath, Bank of America to issue the Visa and they were off and running.
Surely this idea will catch on in these eco conscious times and other players will enter the field. Brighter Planet’s advantage is in their interactive website that tracks the impact of users’ carbon offsets monthly and updates personal profiles. Next up is implementing functionality that allows users to join groups and decrease their collective carbon footprint. Privacy issues aside, Brighter Planet looks like it should enjoy a bright future.
Photo courtesy of Brighter Planet
My wife picked up information on them at this weekend’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival. Word is spreading! I’m glad I saw this article to give greater context, as I’m not the biggest fan of Bank of America. Now I’ll give it a second look.
It’s great to see that people are coming right out of classes ready to put ideas into action.
How about reducing consumption rather than fooling ourselves into believing that we can offset our carbon footprints? There really should be an inverse relationship between spending and rewards to provide a truly green credit card: the more you spend, the less rewards you get. Of course, that would be completely counter to the credit card business model…
Rachel - that is a great point! Less consumption is the best way to go green. But, for those items like food, gas, etc….at least we can consumer knowing we are doing good.
Green Pay is another company that offers carbon offsets as an incentive. With green pay you accrue offsets faster then with Brighter Planet. I wrote a blog posting here about it here
There are actually 3 companies offering carbon offset cards right now - ironically, the third is General Electric with their Earth Rewards Master card.
It’s going to be tough to compare apples to apples as each calculates offsets a little differently and qualifies purchases differently.