Make Your Trip to the Museum Carbon Neutral

The Field Museum in Chicago is launching "Take 1 Step" in early October.  This innovative, voluntary program is the first in the country that allows museum visitors to purchase credits that will offset the carbon emissions they generate by traveling to the museum.

Each carbon emissions offset credit will cost just $1, which will be used to remediate the carbon emissions generated by the average trip to the museum. The money will help slow global warming by entering the carbon market and promoting the development of renewable energy technologies, as well as by habitat restoration projects and the conservation of intact forests.

The Field Museum is well positioned to offer carbon emission offset credits because it participates in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the first greenhouse gas emissions trading system in the world. CCX (see http://www.chicagoclimate.com) was formed four years ago, and in July 2007 The Field Museum became the exchange's first museum participant. 

CCX is the world's only global marketplace for trading emission reductions and offsets for all six greenhouse gases. Here's how it works:

• Participants voluntarily enter into legally binding agreements to cap or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Those who reduce emissions below their target levels have surplus allowances to sell or bank.
• Those who emit above their target levels are required to purchase CCX Carbon Financial
  Instrument contracts.
• One such CFI represents 100 metric tons of carbon dioxide (or equivalent greenhouse gases).

The Field Museum believes that CCX provides a sound, legally binding mechanism for capping and trading carbon emissions that is verified by independent third parties. Therefore when Field Museum visitors purchase a credit, they can be confident that their money will go towards fighting the build-up of greenhouse gases.

To estimate the cost of offsetting a visit, CCX calculated the amount of carbon emitted by a mid-sized car over the mean distance visitors travel to the museum. It costs just less than $1 to offset those emissions.

With the dollar visitors spend on Take 1 Step the museum purchases Carbon Financial Instrument contracts on CCX, and a small portion of the money goes towards Field Museum programs that directly reduce global carbon footprint. The Field's conservation programs in the Andean foothills, Amazonian lowlands, Madagascar, The Philippines and other locations already have saved more than 30 million acres of pristine wilderness.