Put simply, COTAP empowers conference attendees to align their emissions with their 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 conference emissions in a unique and meaningful way: by supporting accredited forestry projects in least developed countries which create wages for the world’s poorest people.
About COTAP
Based in Oakland, CA, COTAP connects individuals’ carbon footprints with accredited forestry projects in least-developed countries. Through the instrument and system of carbon offsets, COTAP enables individuals to pay rural farmers for planting and maintaining trees on under-utilized portions of their land. COTAP is structured, transparent, and accountable because plantings are verified, growth is monitored, and farmers are paid over time as their plantings are successfully managed according to their project plan. With every COTAP offset transaction, 90.9% of funds goes to projects and on average 60.4% goes to rural communities as wages.
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 3 projects in 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 – Los Angeles to San Francisco.
- $6.34 for medium roundtrips. .64 tonnes CO2. 2,000 miles / 4 hours roundtrip. Example – Denver to San Francisco.
- $19.99 for long roundtrips. 2.02 tonnes CO2. 5,500 miles / 9 hours roundtrip. Example – New York to San Francisco.
- $36.43 for extended/international roundtrips. 3.68 tonnes CO2. 10,000+ miles / 15+ hours roundtrip. Example – Europe to San Francisco.
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 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.
Let us know which conference you’re attending
Using the form on the right, please let us know which conference you’re attending and the flight length you’re offsetting. To help us keep track of things, please use the same email address used for your transaction.
In this way, we can report results to conference organizers to share with their attendees in post-conference communications, and we can also make the case for getting them to select COTAP as their official conference air travel offsets provider!
Technical issues, questions, feedback and comments
Conference [at] COTAP [dot] org. You can also use this email to let us know about any technical issues, questions, feedback or comments you may have.
