On Monday, April 23, Green Mountain Power announced a program to allow its customers to neutralize their "carbon footprint" through renewable power and home-heating and driving offsets. The utility also announced that its own operations are carbon neutral - meaning it will offset the carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions of the energy used by its buildings, trucks, and business operations. The program is called "choose2bgreen" and will be available to Green Mountain Power's 90,000 customers.
The initial plan will allow customers to sign up for three programs on the utility's Web site: Greener GMP, CoolHome and CoolDriver. Greener GMP allows customers to buy energy from certified renewable resources equal to some or all of their monthly electricity use. CoolDriver and CoolHome will allow customers to offset the carbon emissions associated with driving their cars and heating their homes, respectively.
According to Green Mountain Power, the cost of participating in the programs ranges from about $3 per month -- the cost of offsetting the emissions from a small car -- to about $50 per month, the cost of buying 100 percent renewable energy and offsetting both home-heating and driving a large sport utility vehicle.