Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty (COTAP) specializes in connecting your carbon footprint with certified forestry projects in least-developed countries which create life-changing income for smallholder farmers who live on less than $2 per day.
DrupalCon Austin 2014 & COTAP
Put simply, COTAP empowers DrupalCon Austin 2014 attendees to align their emissions with a poverty alleviation mission. Air travel carbon dioxide emissions are not only an unavoidable aspect of virtually all conferences, but also one of their biggest environmental impacts. Through COTAP, you can offset your DrupalCon Austin conference emissions in a unique and meaningful way: by supporting certified forestry projects which benefit the world’s poorest people.
How much does it cost?
COTAP’s current average price is USD $9.90 per tonne, and flights offset through this page are allocated evenly to COTAP’s 4 projects in Malawi, Nicaragua, Uganda, and Mozambique. Per our methodology for flights, the available options are:
- $5.35 for Short roundtrips. .54 tonnes CO2. 1,000 miles / 2 hours roundtrip. Example – New Orleans to Austin.
- $6.34 for Medium roundtrips. .64 tonnes CO2. 2,000 miles / 4 hours roundtrip. Example – Denver to Austin.
- $19.99 for Long roundtrips. 2.02 tonnes CO2. 5,500 miles / 9 hours roundtrip. Example – Seattle to Austin.
- $36.43 for Extended/international roundtrips. 3.68 tonnes CO2. 10,000+ miles / 15+ hours roundtrip. Example – Dublin, Ireland to Austin.
Employer Matching & Reimbursable Business Expenses
Please check with your employer to see if they match donations and/or recognize work-related air travel offset transactions as a reimbursable business expense.
Because COTAP is recognized by the I.R.S. as a 501(c)3 public charity, your DrupalCon Austin ’14 air travel offset transaction qualifies for U.S. employer donation matching programs.
If you are a U.S. resident and your employer does reimburse, be sure to treat your transaction as either a business expense to be reimbursed, or a donation, but not both because that would be double counting in the eyes of I.R.S. COTAP prefers that you treat the transaction as a donation if your company has a matching program.
More About COTAP
The market-based tool of carbon credits empowers individuals to take action on climate change by paying others for the service of removing your unavoidable carbon emissions. COTAP’s focus is on projects which directly benefit smallholder farmers in least-developed countries. The result is that you make two transparent and accountable impacts – environmental and social – when you make a COTAP donation.
Individuals from all over the United States – as well as from Hong Kong, Cape Town, Sydney, and Paris – have already transformed over 7.8 million pounds of their carbon emissions into wages in Mozambique, Uganda, Nicaragua, and Malawi through COTAP. COTAP is a registered IRS 501(c)3 public charity in the U.S., and all of its projects are certified under the voluntary Plan Vivo carbon standard, which is dedicated to generating not only verified emissions reductions, but also transparent, accountable, and life-changing income streams for smallholder farmers. COTAP’s initial project portfolio is poised to generate over $1 million in community payments, an amount it seeks to scale to $30M annually.
To learn more, please explore the Mission Statement, How It Works, and Transparency sections of our website.
Please contact us with technical issues, questions, or comments
support [at] cotap [dot] org
