Carbon neutrality

We all need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One Kiwi traveling to Black Rock City does as much damage to the climate as one hundred Kiwis traveling to Kiwiburn. So if we can persuade two people to come to Kiwiburn instead of Burning Man, then we're ahead of the game. Still, we're keen to reduce Kiwiburn's impact upon the climate as much as we can.

Over 95% of Kiwiburn's emissions come from people getting here and that's a problem, because there's not many trains heading to Whakamaru. Pretty much everyone has to drive there, although there is a bus service. We encourage the use of ride-sharing, but most travel emissions are unavoidable at this stage. So we'll be making a donation to a local nature reserve, The Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust, who are encouraging the regeneration of native bush. This absorbs carbon, as well as helping biodiversity, protecting our rare species and supporting local initiatives. The cost of this is pretty small, around $2.60 per person. For more details on the details behind all this, read Dr. Science's research. [pdf]

For international visitors, we ask you to account for your own personal emissions (and to stay a while, to get the most fun out of the huge emissions from your flight). Some airlines are starting to offer their own carbon offset schemes, such as Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Qantas, Jetstar, British Airways, Continental Airlines, Delta, Air Canada, Scandanavian Airlines, and Air France, so you should able to do this when you buy your tickets.

If your airline does not offer carbon offsets, then you can purchase carbon offsets from a wide range of sellers. However, carbon offsets are a new product and there are some schemes out there that aren't as good as they should be. One particular problem is that emissions from aircraft have two to four times the warming effect of emissions from cars. Many offsetting schemes don't take this into account. One scheme that does is Atmosfair a German scheme which invests in a wide range of Gold Standard, verified improvements in small-scale technologies for developing-world communities.