Bandago: Carbon-Neutral Van Rental to Help Bands Tour Green(er)
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 07. 4.07
When you're in a band, touring can be tough, from booking gigs and planning other logistics to finding reliable transportation and then actually driving from city to city, sometimes to the tune of 10,000 miles a month. On top of that, there's the actual "work" part of it, playing shows every night. Between that and finding a gas station in the middle of the night in the middle of Kansas, there isn't always a lot of time to think about your carbon footprint, but van rental agency Bandago (say it with us: Band-Ah-Go) is here to help. Specializing in serving the music industry (but also available to us wannabes and the rest of the general public), they offer 15 passenger vans and Dodge Sprinters, with enough space for a touring bands' gear and even tricked out for a little fun. Offering Sprinters (the diesel-powered, Mercedes-Benz engines get about 27 miles to the gallon) is a pretty neat feature -- though we'd recommend bands and citizens alike fuel 'em up with biodiesel -- but the real attraction for TreeHuggers is that they've partnered up with DriveNeutral (we interviewed CEO Jason Smith here) to make the entire operation carbon neutral. While its true that reduction and increased efficiency is the first (and perhaps most important step) to cutting back on the climate crisis, if your band isn't Pearl Jam, BareNaked Ladies or Gomez, and you haven't had the time or money to create your own Carbon Portfolio Strategy, offsets are a step in the right direction.
By teaming up with DriveNeutral, Bandago expects to offset 823 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to taking nearly 240 passenger vehicles off the road for a year. With offices in San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Pennsylvania (serving the New York City area), they allow for travel in all 50 states (yep, even Hawaii, though they want to know about it first, "cause we want to laugh our asses off") and Canada, but not Mexico ("no, senor"). Learn more about them here -- including an impressive client list, from AC/DShe to Zonk and The Decembrists and Red Hot Chili Peppers in between -- and read up on the details of their carbon neutrality here. ::Bandago
So the van isn't a series hybrid with plug-in capability that actually emits less carbon. It's just rented with some fake-O carbon credit scheme built into the rental price and a bumper sticker saying that it's carbon neutral.
Carbon Credit schemes are scams. Not one of them can actually document that they are returning actual carbon from the atmosphere into the earth in a geologically stable fashion.
Google: "Terra Preta" if you want to learn how to return carbon to the earth from the atmosphere.
Thanks for your comment John.
If I may respond and clarify:
1. We are very clear in our press release that "carbon neutral" is not a solution, it's merely a step in the right direction. We are not climate scientists, and cannot vouch for the efficacy of the program, only that we purchased our credits through the Chicago Climate Exchange, which, from what we understand, is at the forefront of carbon credit offsets. From their website:
We're keenly aware that actual reduction of carbon output is a preferrable result, and we do what we can to help achieve that, which includes careful maintenance of our vehicles, and educating all of our clients on ways to achieve better fuel economy.
While we have not yet achieved true carbon neutrality, we are currently doing more then any other US company in the auto rental industry. My sincere hope is that other rental companies will see what we are doing and choose to follow our example. While carbon credits might not represent a complete solution, they are better then nothing at all, which is the current status quo.
2. The vans we encourage our clients to use are Dodge Sprinter vans, which have a higher level of fuel efficiency then any other van in it's size and class currently available in the US: they can achieve 25mpg, which is nearly an 80% improvement over the typical Ford van which will get around 14mpg.
Unfortunately, right now there isn't a series hybrid full size passenger van with plug-in capability that is both commercially available, and large enough to carry a typical band and all of it's gear. There are rumours that Daimler Chrysler has a hybrid Sprinter in development. When (and if) it is ever released, we will be the first in line to purchase them and make them available to our clients for rental.
We have also examined "grease vans", CNG, and other lower carbon output solutions, but after carefully examing the costs and benefits, we came to the conclusion that these are not yet effective solutions for our clients.
We will continue to monitor the situation, and are always open to ideas and suggestions, as we do not claim to know everything on the subject. Like many people, we are learning, and doing the best we can with what we know. If you have a suggestion for us please feel free to send it to us via email: info AT bandago.com
3. Contrary to your posts implication, we did not raise our rates one single cent to implement our Carbon Offset program. In fact, we haven't raised our rates since starting the company five years ago.
Right now we have voluntarily shouldered 100% of the carbon credit purchases, and have not passed on any of this cost to our clients.
We are presently considering whether we should implement a small fee on clients that go over our included mileage of 250 miles a day (and by small, I mean in the neigborhood of $1/day - which we will match of course). This isn't out of greed or cynicism, rather it stems from the belief that clients that are driving more miles are emitting more carbon, and should rightfully bear at least some of the costs of the carbon output, if for no other reason then to increase understanding of our shared responsibilities and encourage more efficient tour routing. We have not yet made a final decision on that yet, and probably won't until we have had a chance to review it with our clients.
I appreciate your thoughts (and I did indeed read several articles on Terra Preta, although I didn't see a solution that we could directly implement), and would again state that we welcome input and suggestions from the Treehugger.com community. You can respond via comments in this article, or email us directly: info AT bandago.com.
Sincerely,
Sharky Laguana
CEO
Bandago Van Rentals
I feel confident that Sharky can claim that the offsets he purchased on behalf of Bandago achieved the aim he intended. They represent real and verifiable greenhouse gas reductions in the same amount as the fleet of vans emit in a given year. How do we know these credits achieved the claimed reductions? Because we work with an entirely different set of standards than tree-based or renewable energy-based offset credits. Not that some of those aren't good also. It's just they are particularly more difficult to quantify, verify, and maintain. LiveNeutral credits on the other hand are easy to quantify and verify because they come directly from companies and municipalities that have a known and 3rd party-verified greenhouse gas footprint. As members of the CCX they are required to reduce that footprint 6%. When they exceed the scheduled reductions and start to generate more reductions than required by CCX, these additional reductions become carbon credits. So, in effect, the big emitters of today are given credit for reducing their emissions. This is very different than asking them to plant trees that can mop up the atmosphere. When offsetting through LiveNeutral, your contribution helps drive the financial model that encourages the nations largest polluters to cut back! It's a way to vote with your dollar to create the change you wish to see in the world. Now, as soon as we can get some wind-powered cars and planes out there, offsets will play less of a role. In the meantime, it's best to do everything we can to reduce emissions everywhere we can. Good job Bandago!