Carbon Zero Lawn Care strives to be as green a company as possible, using soy ink on recycled paper, electronic invoicing, and battery recycling.

The question asked of me then is, “How can you claim to be Carbon Zero if you use such big honkin’ trucks?”

Two word answer: Carbon Offsets.

Carbon Offset programs do just what their name would indicate: They are organizations that develop and manage environmentally beneficial projects such as reforestation or wind farms. The funding for these projects is collected by calculating donors’ carbon footprints, determining the value of what it takes to offset those footprints and investing the monies in their projects.

Because the nature of lawn care involves the use of many heavy machines – most of which are not viably electric – yet – we are required to use vehicles suitable to transporting these machines from place to place; there’s just no getting around it at the moment.

To neutralize the detrimental effects produced by our vehicles, Carbon Zero Lawn Care calculates its footprint for operations and donates annually to certifiable carbon offset programs. In addition, we may make smaller donations on a monthly basis whenever we are obliged to use tools with internal combustion engines, like core-aerators.

We subscribe to www.carbonfund.org, and our donations are currently split between the Nez Perce Reforestation Project in Idaho and the Truck Stop Electrification Project.

For more information on other programs and to find out how you, your business and your family can become “carbon zero,” I recommend you log on to www.ecobusinesslinks.com; they have a list of carbon offset programs, along with their respective certifications.

…and remember: “Healthy Lawn = Healthy Planet”