Car rental companies offer carbon offsets

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car launched the car rental industry's largest customer carbon offset program. Designed to give customers a simple but meaningful way to address the environmental impact of renting a car, the program is the first consumer initiative to be launched under all three brands. Enterprise, National and Alamo are owned by the Taylor family of St. Louis. Collectively, the Taylor family owns and operates the world's largest automotive fleet, employing more than 1.1 million vehicles.

Under this new program, customers of all three rental car brands can benefit the environment by offsetting the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated by the average car rental. When reserving a car through the company's call-in reservation centers or online, customers can opt in to pay $1.25 per rental (plus applicable taxes) to purchase a carbon offset. Under this new program, in partnership with TerraPass, a leading provider of carbon offsets, the funds will be used to purchase certified offset projects that work to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. According to TerraPass, for every 100,000 customers who choose to take part, this effort will offset more than 30 million pounds -- or 13,500 metric tons -- of CO2. In the pilot phase of the program, which began on Jan. 1, 2008, the company reported that across all three brands, approximately 1,000 customers per day agreed to buy carbon offsets when reserving a vehicle.