JOIN PETER HALLEY STUDIO IN OFFSETTING CO2 EMISSIONS FROM YOUR STUDIO OR ART GALLERY.
ALL OF US CAN BEGIN TO REDUCE AND OFFSET OUR CARBON CONSUMPTION “RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.”
LET’S WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE THE ART WORLD A CARBON NEUTRAL INDUSTRY.
Offsetting your CO2 emissions is easier than you think! It is also not expensive.
Here at Peter Halley Studio, we produce 132 metric tons of CO2 each year. We pay only $1,500/year to offset these emissions through the non-profit climate-action Gold Standard Foundation.
Here’s how to calculate your carbon use and offset your emissions through Gold Standard.
TO CALCULATE YOUR CO2 USE ONLINE:
With so many different factors involved, you might worry that you’re not accounting for all your emissions. To be safe, Peter Halley Studio added an extra 20% to the total metric tons of CO2 we calculate using these websites.
It’s important to remember that we’re not striving for perfection — if you offset even 80% of your yearly emissions, you are making a difference. Even offsetting just your airplane travel and electric use will probably offset more than half of your emissions!
As an artist or art gallery, most of your emissions can be broken down into air and car travel, electricity consumption, heating and materials.
To calculate emissions from your air and car travel, go to the flights and car tabs on Carbon Footprint Ltd’s detailed calculator:
https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
For heating from natural gas, propane or fuel oil, you can use the EPA’s carbon footprint calculator:
https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/
For emissions produced by electricity, look at a recent bill from your electricity provider. It will probably tell you the total kW hours used in the last year. Then use Carbon Footprint Ltd to calculate your CO2 consumption: https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
To calculate the amount of carbon produced by the materials you use, go to CoolClimate Network’s calculator to determine emissions from basic items like paper, electronics, and trash:
https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/business-calculator.
For specialty items that artists use (like paint) go to:
http://www.co2list.org/files/carbon.htm
which details the carbon produced by construction materials, paint and anything else you use in your studio.
TO OFFSET YOUR CO2 EMISSIONS THROUGH GOLD STANDARD:
After you have calculated the total metric tons of CO2 you want to offset, we recommend purchasing carbon credits through Gold Standard Foundation:
https://www.goldstandard.org
Gold Standard is a vetted, non-governmental emissions reductions organization based in Geneva. Developed in 2003 by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Gold Standard certifies and supports hundreds of community-based green energy projects.
Through Gold Standard, Peter Halley Studio is purchasing carbon credits each month to pay for the 100 MW wind power plant being built by Orange Renewable in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, India
(https://www.goldstandard.org/projects/100-mw-wind-power-project-anantapur-andhra-pradesh).
The cost of carbon offsetting through Gold Standard projects is reasonable – between $10 and $18 USD per metric ton of CO2. To put that in perspective, one roundtrip flight from New York to Paris emits about 1.7 tons of CO2.
If you have questions about how to offset your carbon emissions, please write to us at: office@indexmagazine.com