A carbon footprint is defined by the emissions of greenhouse gases associated with any specific activity or transaction. The carbon footprint of driving is primarily made of CO2emissions. With transport being responsible for nearly 30% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions, 72% comes from road transportation, of which cars account for 60%.

Carbon offsetting is a climate action that enables individuals and organizations to address the CO2 emissions they cannot avoid by supporting projects - like clean-energy producing wind farms or forestry projects - that verifiably reduce, capture, or avoid a proportional amount of CO2 emissions. Said another way, carbon offsetting enables car owners to balance the carbon emissions released as a result of their driving.

Car calculations are based on the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) when available, with a fallback on correlating WLT New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). For electric cars, the average grid emission density per country is used. Source database: European Environment Agency (EEA).

That depends on the car. But using an average European new car as an example, driving 20,000 km per year, is approximately €0.74 per month in carbon cost to offset the cars driving emissions.

Projects certified by the Verified Carbon Standard and by the Gold Standard must adhere to the principle of “additionality”. This means that the projects are being realized as a result of the funding. In other words, car owners are not supporting a project that would have been carried out anyway. The carbon credits are funding additional carbon mitigation. Often, projects are not financially attractive to investors without the sale of these carbon credits and would therefore not materialize. All projects that CHOOOSE™ make available to car owners with Santander are subject to ongoing and regular monitoring, reporting, and auditing to ensure that they remain in compliance with these standards and operational best practices.