Through flight offsetting, can one fly as much as one wishes?

No. atmosfair is just a concrete course of action when a flight cannot be avoided. Compared to flying less, climate protection contributions are only the second-best solution. On the basis of physical reasons alone (contrails and cloud formation), the damage to the climate caused by flights can never be completely offset. However, if you have decided to fly, then atmosfair is the best option for protecting the climate.

By the way, atmosfair also shows how flying can be avoided in the first place. In many cases there are worthwhile alternatives!

Does atmosfair improve the image of no-frills airlines?

No because atmosfair does not work together with “no-frills airlines.”

Would atmosfair no longer exist if no one ever flew again?

Yes. However, not all flights are avoidable, and even in the long term, they will not all be avoidable. If air traffic were to decrease to a climate-friendly level, atmosfair as it currently exists would no longer be necessary.

Why doesn't atmosfair offer an emissions calculator for automobiles?

Fundamentally, atmosfair does not offer calculations for climate protection contributions for cars, consumer goods, or industrial products. According to our conviction, savings through climate protection projects should always be a subordinate solution and not compete with the best solution (i.e., avoidance or direct CO₂ reduction).

For example, regarding cars, we see many good opportunities to directly reduce CO₂ emissions: driving a smaller car, driving at slower speeds, car sharing, switching to trains and public transportation, using an electric car powered by green energy, etc. A comparison of airplane, car, and train emissions clearly illustrates the relationships.

However, a plane passenger has no means of directly reducing emissions other than abstaining from flying. Through atmosfair, they have the opportunity to at least compensate for the damage caused by non-reducible emissions through a climate protection contribution.

Can I offset my heating emissions?

When it comes to heating emissions, we also adhere to the principle that prevention (e.g., through insulation) is preferable to offsetting. However, especially in rental apartments or houses, tenants often have few opportunities to reduce their own consumption through technical measures.

Practical suggestions for CO₂ savings in heating, including for tenants, as well as for all other areas of daily life, are provided in the German booklet Pendos CO₂-Zähler. Die CO2-Tabelle für ein klimafreundliches Leben.

Does atmosfair sponsor climate-neutral projects?

atmosfair does not wish to promote the possibility of “offsetting” over the goal of absolutely necessary emissions saving. atmosfair will never offer “climate-neutral” products because on the one hand, the manufacturing of these products involves many steps that can hardly be quantified and on the other hand, there is a choice among different products that vary in their impact on the climate, from which the user can choose the most climate-friendly. If atmosfair offered offsetting for products for which there are better alternatives (and this is the case for almost all consumer products), then atmosfair would help these inferior products to have an artificially longer life and distort the competition to the disadvantage of ecologically superior alternatives.

Does atmosfair take off the responsibility for CO₂ emissions of its customers?

The aim of our compensation projects is not to absolve customers of responsibility for their emissions, but to counteract the negative effects of these emissions on the climate elsewhere. As a climate protection organization, we are primarily interested in the CO₂ emitted during a specific activity, such as a flight, and do not evaluate the motivations behind the decision to engage in that activity. atmosfair is not the authority to judge whether one person’s desire for a flight should be deemed more important than another’s desire for a vacation in the Black Forest. Therefore, we do not distinguish between luxury and basic emissions, as these boundaries would not only be fluid in today’s society but also influenced by value judgments that we aim to avoid.

From a climate perspective, however, we must ensure that substitution or reduction potential is maximized before compensation is carried out; otherwise, compensation for climate protection would be counterproductive. We implement this with corporate clients by only entering into a partnership if the client can demonstrate a relevant climate protection strategy. Private customers generally have to assess for themselves how the balance between substitution or reduction and compensation plays out in their case.

As a consequence of these points, we do not simplify compensation for emissions from products or activities for which there are already technically clean solutions available, as we do for flying. We leave it to the individual customer to assess, calculate, and choose to save their CO₂ emissions on our website as a “desired quantity” in Global South countries. Customers do not receive a certificate stating that they are “carbon neutral” when driving a car, but rather one that simply indicates the amount of CO₂ saved.