When you upgrade to an ECO2llege Class ticket StudentUniverse will allocate enough Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) to balance the carbon dioxide emissions created during your flight. The VERs purchased by StudentUniverse sourced from high quality renewable energy and methane capture projects located in Mexico, China and India.

A Verified Emission Reduction or VER is a reduction of one metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions below a baseline or regulatory requirement. VERs allow you to support an equivalent quantity of a real reduction from a project locally or across the globe. By providing new revenue streams to farmers, supporting critical wildlife habitat or bringing clean energy technologies to developing countries, VERs offer a way to support the reduction of carbon emissions when you can no longer reduce emissions onsite.

Reducing carbon emissions can be done in many ways. A purchase of VERs, while not directly reducing emissions at your location, ensures that the carbon reduction is real, verifiable, additional, and permanent. Each VER represents one metric ton of greenhouse gas that will not be released into the atmosphere. The projects supported by StudentUniverse either would not have happened at all or, were greatly assisted by the revenue generated by the sale of VERs. The concept of showing that the revenue generated from the sale of VERs was an essential part of getting the project off the ground is called "Additionality" and is one of the tests each project must go through in order to become a producer of Verified Emission Reductions.

The VERs purchased by StudentUniverse are verified by independent third parties against internationally recognized protocols written by the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

By Choosing to fly ECO2llege Class StudentUniverse will purchase VERs on your behalf sourced from verified carbon reduction projects located in Mexico, China, and India. This commitment directly supports the reduction of greenhouse gases which would have been released into the atmosphere if these projects were not in place. To help highlight your support (and help find your bags on your next trip) we'll send you a luggage tag designed to raise your fellow travelers awareness around the environmental responsibilities that come with travel.

StudentUniverse is purchasing Verified Emission Reductions sourced from Mexico Agricultural Methane Capture Projects and wind energy projects located in India and China where clean renewable energy has never been more important.

As part of our commitment to the environment StudentUniverse is operating as Carbon Balanced through the purchase of Verified Emission Reductions. We elect not to say "Carbon Neutral" because we recognize that carbon dioxide is still being created through our business practices. Unable to change that through the technology available today we have taken steps to balance these emissions by supporting projects that create clean renewable energy and the capture and destruction of carbon dioxide.

We've calculated and offset our carbon footprint for:

100% of office electricity and gas emissions
100% of business travel (flights and driving)

We also have motion sensing light switches so that the lights are only on when folks are around, we only use 100% recycled copy paper and have a pretty good recycling program.