Is it Enough to Pay Money to be Climate Neutral?

Yes, it is enough to pay money to call themselves climate neutral. It may sound provocative and possibly unfairly easy to just pay a little money and be called climate neutral, but you can actually achieve great benefits for the climate with relatively little money. This is of great benefit so that most people can easily reduce emissions – through climate projects in other countries – more than the emissions themselves cause. And then you can call yourself climate neutral.

But at the same time, it is not enough to help others reduce their emissions so that we can stop climate change. At the same time, we must also reduce our own emissions. Therefore, different websites and companies allow you to see the investment in climate projects as a first step in the right direction. After taking that step, we must also reduce our own emissions.

In general, however, people find it difficult to cut down on their emissions because it often requires a change in the lifestyle they live – such as whether to sell the car or stop flying. Therefore, we have chosen to first make it easy for people to start contributing to curbing climate change through investments in climate projects. When this first step is taken, we want to inspire to reduce our own emissions.

The approach to getting people to take a small step first and then make major changes is called Foot in the door technique. You can read more about how it works here.

Foot in the door technique is a big reason why we believe in getting as many people as possible to take a first step in their climate commitment, and why we think it needs to be both simple and positively charged. There is simply a much greater likelihood that people will do more and more important things for the climate once they have started to take a step in the right direction.