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Personal Carbon Credits — Cash Back

January 15, 2010 By 2 Comments
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This is one I haven’t seen floating around yet. Personal carbon credits.

A new website helps you to cash-in on reducing your carbon emissions through home solar panels, wind turbines, more energy efficiency, etc. And it is up and running.

You reduce your home energy usage, report it to them, and get money back on PayPal.

On the website — My Emissions Exchange — you input your home energy usage (electric and heat usage for the previous year), you reduce your energy usage through whatever means you can while continuing to input your home energy usage once a month, and then you get money back for it, and that’s it! As the website states, “My Emissions Exchange or MyEex (pronounced “my-eeks”) is a personal carbon exchange that lets you earn money for reducing your carbon footprint. MyEmissionsExchange tackles the increasingly important issue of global warming in a new way: by paying individuals for reducing their carbon emissions”

The company is starting of with home energy usage, but hopes to evolve into other matters as well. “In the future, we will expand to include reducing carbon emissions from your cars, your personal travel and even the stuff you buy!”

Apparently, it is happening. MyEex has reportedly sold its first personal carbon credit from “the Wilson family in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania” to Molten Equipment Innovations for $21.50. MyEex took a 20% cut and sent the rest back to the Wilson family.

The cash back is not huge — you won’t get your money back on a solar installation from this alone. But it is an additional, fun incentive. And the non-rational people that we are, a small amount of cash back often stimulates us to go for more — why else would every credit card have such a program now?

There are great, fun videos, emissions measuring tools, tips and witty writing on the website as well.

via Cooler Planet

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Image Credit: Ed Yourdon via flickr under a CC license

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About Zachary Shahan

If you couldn't guess, I spend most of my time on CleanTechnica and Planetsave. I'm the director/editor of both sites and am a little obsessed with them. I'm also Publishing Services Manager at Important Media, which means that I do everything I can to support other Important Media writers, editors, and directors (as well as the network as a whole) in the good work they are engaged in. You can also find my written work on Scientific American, Reuters, Change.org, and most of the sites in the Important Media network. For a full list of my author pages on sites around the internet, or to connect with me on common social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com

  • David

    How transparent is this? Is someone physically verifying the people reducing emissions are actually doing so? And would the people getting paid have reduced emissions anyways, perhaps due to rising costs?

    This program may give the appearance that it maintains net emissions. However, I am skeptical that it actually does what it claims but instead lets folks pay other folks for no good reason. Instead that money could be increasing efficiency, which would guarantee it reduces net emissions.

  • David

    How transparent is this? Is someone physically verifying the people reducing emissions are actually doing so? And would the people getting paid have reduced emissions anyways, perhaps due to rising costs?

    This program may give the appearance that it maintains net emissions. However, I am skeptical that it actually does what it claims but instead lets folks pay other folks for no good reason. Instead that money could be increasing efficiency, which would guarantee it reduces net emissions.

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