On Green Tags

On Green Tags

07 Mar 2005

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

My power company (Florida Power and Light) sent me a letter asking me to choose its Sunshine Energy program, which, for an additional $9.75 a month, helps support the building of a 150-kilowatt solar facility in Florida. Do you think I should do it?

Linda
Coral Springs, Fla.

Ask Umbra continues below

ADVERTISING POLICY

Dearest Linda,

Yes.

And I am herewith going to foist my plans for 2005 upon all the rest of you: They involve deemphasizing insignificant widgets and reemphasizing energy conservation, greenhouse-gas reduction, and overall efficiency improvements in our daily lives.

Won't you please fund me?

Photo: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Now that I've answered your question in the affirmative, Linda, let me shed a little, um, power and light on the situation. According to my understanding of the Sunshine Energy web propaganda, your 10 bucks would not actually go toward building a solar facility. Rather, your money would go toward buying "tradable renewable energy credits." That's not bad, it's just not what you understood.

Non-Floridians should start paying attention to this column now, too, because anybody can buy tradable renewable energy credits, aka Green Tags. States, businesses, individuals, and school classrooms all can join in the fun. The good thing about the Green Tags concept is that it requires us to do what many environmentalists have been wanting to do for years: count damage or improvement to the environment as an economic impact. The bad thing is that the concept is, I find, confusing. Our basic activities (cooking our food, heating our homes) lead to tens of thousands of pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions per household every year, but many of us cannot currently opt to buy renewable energy from our utility, because such energy sources are limited. Green Tags allow us to use our utility's non-eco-friendly power, but mathematically buy our way back down to zero total emissions.

Stay with me here. Remember, our system is: Capitalism. Let me give you an example of it at work in the renewable-energy sector here in the non-sunshine state where I live. The Washington State School for the Blind has a righteous building with PV panels that generate solar energy. Through imaginative economics, the generated energy is divided into two commodities: one is the energy itself, the second is the environmental benefits of the energy. The school sells these two commodities separately. The first goes into the power grid and is mixed up with nuclear, hydro, gas, whatever; it is no longer special, it is just energy. The second, packaged as Green Tags, is purchased by individuals or entities who are causing bad emissions and wish to zero out their impact -- Florida Power and Light, for example. To reduce its emissions and give customers like yourself the option of supporting green energy, the company entered the tradable-renewable-energy-credit game.

If you like, Linda, you could skip straight over your utility company's offer and zero out all of your personal emissions by buying your own Green Tags. The benefit of joining FPL's project is that you send the message that you want green energy -- and the company promises to install 150 kW worth of photovoltaic solar panels on the roofs of existing buildings for every 10,000 people who join the Sunshine Energy program. The (environmental) downside is that the company might not be buying enough Green Tags on your behalf -- but you could always make up the difference yourself. Use the Green Tags carbon calculator to learn how many pounds of CO2 you produce in a year and how many Green Tags would zero you out. It's a little sobering.

Compensatorily,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (10 comments)

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Say NO! to green tags

Umbra, Your advice is usually excellent, but in advocating buying green tags you have made a serious mistake.
We should NOT be green consumers, but should be green citizens. We shouln't assuage guilt, as you are suggesting but rather demand that everyone buy green. We can do that through legislation and regulation.
Guilt ridden, or just good hearted, we make a mistake by buying green tags. For that leaves the industrial customers to go on buying cheap dirty power. Industrial customers buy one-third of all the elctricity, so we are missing that whole market by being green consumers rather than green citizens.
Misguided environmental activists are leading the Grist community down the wrong road. Demand that industrial customers buy green first.

Gene Coyle

by EUGENE Coyle at 3:07 PM on 07 Mar 2005

Say YES! to green tags

Gene,

Your basic objection seems to suggest that industrial customers cannot also switch to green power? Green tags is already allowing many to do so: Sprint, IBM, Kinko's, Staples, to name a few. (I'm not saying that they're perfect, just that they're beginning to switch to green energy thanks to consumer pressure and PR benefits.) A company that is marketing green tags to universities and corporations is Pristine Power. And Krystal-Energy is using referral-based marketing to get green tags into homes everywhere.

So as we continue to "demand that industrial customers buy green" and support legislation pressuring businesses to go green, we can also, for our own homes, transition to 100% certified green power. 35 million people in Europe (and 1 million in the U.S.) are already buying green tags and for good reason: it's the easiest way for any home to switch to clean power.

~ George Kao
Krystal-Energy.com

by georgekao at 5:32 PM on 07 Mar 2005

Say NO! Buy a tankless water heater instead!

People who live in states that have plenty of sunshine resources (or wind for that matter) shouldn't be supporting a company that wants to just buy thier way out of making real changes.

Instead, you should look at ways to remove yourself from the power grid and dependancy on their coal and nuclear power generation. We are rebuilding our home and adding solar and wind with battery backup to our home. We are also taking out our tank-style water heater and adding an 'on-demand' system. These are small changes, but the intial costs ($300 for the water heater) will save us THOUSANDS in the long run. Unfortunately we cannot completely separate, but we should have significant savings and if each person would just do one small thing, it would make a difference.

blind-penguin 2 follow the sun nosnowzone, Fla usa

by blindpenguin at 11:25 AM on 08 Mar 2005

NO! to Green Tags

George, People who "buy green" feel good about themselves, but it is a mistake for supporting clean air.
What percent of IBM's power is bought green? Very little.
If voluntary purchasing will do the trick, why didn't catalytic converters on cars happen voluntarily?
It is one thing to name poster children among the industrials, quite another to have any significant participation. The industrials are looking for the cheapest power they can buy.
And the people who do buy green begin to resent the rest, splitting the populous rather than uniting it.
Let's be green citizens and demand that every customer buy green power. Let's not depend on the good will of the affluent few who volunteer.

Gene Coyle

PS There is a lot written on this issue -- and former advocates of green consumerism in the environmental community seem to have gone silent in the past few years.

by EUGENE Coyle at 3:32 PM on 09 Mar 2005
[ Parent ]

Say YES, and tell others!

Supporting clean, renewable power generation in every way we can, including Green Tag purchases, is not only an important way to vote with our dollars and show our concern--it is imperative if we are to avoid global catastrophe.

Gene's suggestion that "legislation and regulation" are the answers is only part of the picture. Yes, let's work for positive change in those arenas, but it takes a lot of time. One thing we can do TODAY to help swing the tide is BUY GREEN TAGS.

Be green citizens AND green consumers. Our choice doesn't have to be either/or. It can be "both/and" to result in faster progress.

Highly recommended! Visit http://www.green-e.org/what_is/dictionary/trc.html

Go, Umbra!!!

by charley at 7:28 AM on 10 Mar 2005

Keep saying NO!

Charlie,

I tdoes have to be either or. As a very small number buy green tags, the chances of regulation are hurt. Politicans will point to the small number and say "See, people really don't care about this."
Buying green has failed, let's move on to what works.

Gene

by EUGENE Coyle at 2:08 PM on 11 Mar 2005

(smirk)

I'm with Gene, here.

by IrishMafia at 3:17 PM on 14 Mar 2005
[ Parent ]

The lesser evil

While the "Green Tag NO!" contingent may be technically correct in discussing the flaws of the Green Tag system, I think it misses the best asset of the system: its simplicity and accessibility for "average" people.

By "average" people I mean those who would like, in a generally well-meaning way, to help the environment, but would NEVER label themselves "greenies," start biking to work, or install their own solar panels. And would never, for that matter, read GRIST. Sorry, but the fact is, those people are never going to go off the grid, as blindpenguin advocates; and they're not going to boycott non-green industrial customers as Gene suggests, either.

I know a lot of people like that, and I'd be surprised if you didn't. Then again, I'm sure there are some places where most people are bike-riding, protest-marching folks. But it sure ain't that way in Missouri, and most of my friends get a rather vacant expression when I start nattering about eco-topics. So when my recent purchase of a TerraPass for my car sparked some general interest, I was delighted.

TerraPass essentially allows you to eliminate, through your purchase, an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to your car's annual emissions. It's a neat idea - and one that I think could really catch on with the socially-conscious, SUV-driving soccer mom set. Furthermore, Gene, it's a RECENT idea, that builds on the idea of Green Tags - with new ideas and products coming out, how can you possibly say that the concept has "failed" when it's still attracting interest?

I think hard-core environmentalists are often a bit too quick in dismissing methods and ideas because they don't do enough, or don't do it fast enough. Look - we're not going to transform the energy industry overnight. In the meantime, I don't see why half-measures aren't a reasonable compromise. I care about the environment a LOT, but where I live, driving is a necessity. So I can continue to spew emissions into our atmosphere and do nothing, or I can spew emissions into our atmosphere and then pay $50 a year to effectively neutralize those emissions. That's MY either/or. Which do you prefer?

Green Tags and related methods allow the "average" folks (who make up the VAST majority of our energy-guzzling country's population, of course) to do SOMETHING about their energy consumption without totally overhauling their lifestyles - which they are never going to do, anyway. A realistic attitude dictates doing what we can. Sure, my idealistic side wants industrial customers to be 100% green too, Gene - but is it really better, on balance, NOT to attempt to lower emissions while we're working on that? You can't stay with your head in the clouds too long in that situation - you'll choke on the smog.

Eve

by liquideve at 10:48 AM on 15 Mar 2005

EyeKu

Like indulgences

so too will the tags of green

be laughed at later

by IrishMafia at 3:06 PM on 15 Mar 2005

Create Your Own Tag

I think it does not matter if we buy Green Tag or Eco Tag. The important thing is that we understand what these initiators are trying to tell us.

There are people who wants to be eco friendly but they do not have an idea how but they can find the information they want from these organizations.

On my part instead of grossing over waste generated or others who do not practice the green ways, I work on giving ideas on what you can create with waste and enjoys providing suggestions on how you can even make a living out of them. A positive workout that should make one sit up. "Abundance From Abandoned" that's my green tag. What's yours?

I love reading your replies, Umbra. Can I have you linked to my blog?

GreenBeing Nancy Creates Abundance from Abandoned

by Greenbeings Nancy at 8:08 PM on 28 Mar 2007

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Green Tag, You're It