When it Rains it Pours

When it rains it pours… MXenergy is sponsoring not one but two Earth Day events in our territories this month.

In Georgia, we have teamed up with SweetWater Brewing Company www.sweetwaterbrew.com for their annual event this Friday in Atlanta. In New Jersey, MX has also partnered with the US Fish & Wildlife Service to help plant 1,600 trees at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville.

In both New Jersey & Atlanta we are launching our Earth Friendly Partner program in which we are matching customer contributions of $.01 per therm – about $10 per year for the average homeowner – to purchase 100% carbon offsets. I still find it hard to believe that homeowners account for more than 5 tons – that’s right, tons! – each year of carbon dioxide emissions. We have purchased carbon offset credits that have been issued in connection with reforestation projects on a couple American Indian reservations in Montana. Trees absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis as they convert CO2 into carbon for growth and release oxygen into the atmosphere.

When customers agree to pay an additional penny a therm, MX matches the contribution and contributes to the reforestation effort. Customers who join the program receive a certificate that confirms their efforts to help clean up our environment.

Our New Jersey program is similar although we are not purchasing carbon offsets. Instead, we are helping the US Fish & Wildlife Service plant trees. We have agreed to buy tree shelters – little tents – to protect the seedlings from deer. The shelters stay in place until the sapplings are large enough to survive grazing wildlife. After all, a dead tree does not absorb carbon dioxide!

Unlike the Georgia program, the New Jersey plantings do not generate carbon offsets so we cannot sell these to our customers, although we do offer the Earth Friendly Partnership across the state of New Jersey, due to a concept known as “additionality”: Only reforestration projects that would not otherwise have happened qualify for carbon credits. Instead, we are simply making a donation to the government to subsidize the shelters. We are doing our best to be good corporate citizens.

So when it rains…you can take shelter under our new trees!