‘Carbon offsetting’ is the latest innovation in green fashions to arrive here in Beirut from Europe, where it has been doing the rounds of the region’s increasingly environmentally conscious businesses for a few years (or at least, businesses with new government targets to meet and their customers waking up to the realities of global warming). The concept was originally dreamt up with the aim of encouraging large-scale consumers in environmentally friendly practices by offering them the business benefit of concrete proof of any carbon-busting policies. This laudable aim seems to have got lost slightly in the application – carbon neutral packages invite businesses and individuals to have their carbon usage calculated by a dedicated company, who then formulate their paper-wasting, fuel-guzzling and air-polluting as a monetary cost to the environment (bear with us on this). The guest company then invests the money in suitably green projects such as reforestation in return for a ‘Certificate of Carbon Neutrality’. Gimmicky? Perhaps, but as water cuts and heat waves plague the city, we’re ready to admit that anything raising the profile of the need to act sustainably is probably a good thing.
At least the packages offered by CO2 Neutral, the first Lebanese company to work with such strategies, include carbon reduction measures for businesses rather than inviting them to simply pay off their debt to the environment and forget about it. Their reforestation project (surprise), while it might not rid Lebanon of its carbon overload, will help re-green the the hillsides of Qaraoun in the West Bekaa. Will this encourage a ripple effect of cleaner living throughout the city? There’s no harm in hoping, we suppose.

For more information call 05 592105, 03 028817 or visit www.i-am-co2neutral.com