Essent Trading is pleased to announce that it will offset the CO2 emissions of all business flights taken by its employees. All emissions between 1 January and 30 June 2009 have already been offset using Gold Standard Voluntary Emissions Reductions (GS VER) credits. During these first six months of the year, a total of 502 tons of CO2 have been offset.

We calculated the total emissions for business air travel using the CO2 flight calculator developed by reputable offsetting company Atmosfair.

Atmosfair’s flight footprint calculator was rated as the most accurate calculator available on the internet in a study by the Tufts Climate Initiative known as "Voluntary Offsets for Air-Travel Carbon Emissions". The calculation takes into account the radiative forcing of emissions from planes: i.e. the fact that CO2 emitted in the sky causes more global warming than CO2 emitted on the ground and other important variables such as seat occupancy, type of planes, short haul versus long haul flights efficiency etc.

Offsetting takes place by officially cancelling the same number of GS VERs as the total number of emissions calculated. Essent Trading has used GS VERs from the Gold Standard Project "Mare Monastir Wind Farm in Turkey " for this initiative. In effect, 502 GS VERs have been permanently retired from the account of Essent Trading International S.A. in the Gold Standard Registry, as shown in the Gold Standard’s public report named Retired VER Credits.