Reading a just-released study on Greenfluencers and the ensuing discussion about their inherent skepticism of green companies and initiatives, I was reminded of some early decisions that Brighter Planet made to help consumers with choices they face.

Renewable energy projects and conservation are essential to creating a sustainable future, yet many consumers do not have the expertise or time to investigate various green alternatives. When we considered our business plan, we questioned whether someone would give up their mileage points (something very personal) for renewable energy projects (something very abstract). While other green credit cards chose to further the missions of environmental not-for-profits, instead, we hoped that people would choose rewards that invest in clean energy and help buy the world time in the fight against global warming.

We decided that people would, if we gave them enough confidence — confidence that clean energy can be created to help decrease our national dependence on dirty energy and the reassurance that we would deliver what we said we would. That’s how we got started on our PANTS carbon offset policy and what I like to call our belt, suspenders, Velcro, and Krazy glue.

PANTS is more than a cute acronym – it’s a demonstration of our commitment to our customers that we will deliver what we promise. At various events around the country, our field team stapled blue jeans to a wood sign asking people to ask us about pants. Many take us up on our offer!

So what are our PANTS?

PANTS – with each letter standing for a key criteria to our project selection — is the underpinning to our quality offsets:

Permanence - Our projects are built to provide carbon-free electricity for decades.

Additionality - While the project is well-suited to produce energy, it lacks sufficient funding. This project wouldn’t otherwise happen without the funding from our customers.

New construction - We want to invest in projects that come to life in part through Brighter Planet customers, so we prioritize new project construction over “current year” offsets from existing projects.

Transparency - What you see is what you get. Our Web site and newsletters keep everyone updated on progress of our projects.

Social value added - We prioritize projects that are good for the local economy and use local labor and materials.

And then, we have our belt, suspenders, velcro and Krazy glue:

BELT
The belt comes next. We asked our advisory board to hold up our PANTS — that is to review and critique our policy to ensure that the standards are stringent. They did just that: Only projects that can be trusted will make it through the gauntlet.

SUSPENDERS
In the absence of an industry-wide “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval for carbon offset projects, we wanted suspenders. That comes in the form of our Project Selection Committee — five esteemed environmentalists who vet each project that we propose adding to our portfolio. Projects get added to our portfolio only if Jon Isham, Terry Kellogg, Mindy Lubber, Billy Parish, and Gus Speth approve them.

VELCRO
Our annual audit — the Velcro — via an independent auditor makes sure we’re doing what we say we’re doing. This includes inspections of the creation of all offsets estimated for that year and retirement of all offsets purchased that year so that they truly benefit the environment and are never sold again.

KRAZY GLUE
Some people may call us crazy, but we created an industry-first portfolio guarantee. We create a blend of projects and estimate their production conservatively. Our portfolio generally bats more than 100% across all the projects. If one project does underperform, we make up for the shortfall by a surplus in another project.

Do we need belt, suspenders, Velcro, and Krazy glue? Maybe not, but since not all offsets are created equal, I know that the extra steps help me sleep better at night. And that our customers, knowing that their renewable energy investments make a real difference in fighting climate change, can sleep better too. And then we can all get back to work cutting our energy use and spurring environmental action.

- Patti