Progressive Wednesday

A different kind of greencard

Last Month you learned the heinous truths about the credit card industry, and how quickly it can grab your life by the privy parts, not to let go for years, if ever. But, while we encourage you to carry as little credit card debt as possible (preferably none), we understand that in today's peregrin-falcon-paced society, they are a necessary evil. Plus, having a card or two can improve your credit if you pay it off every month.

So which card should you get? You've sifted through the “Mount Everest– of this week's credit card mail offers on your kitchen table and they all seem to promising the same things. But you know now that those promises can be reversed faster than a CEO chasing after dollar bill on a windy day. So you weigh the perks: airline miles, auto discounts, free gas. How about carbon offsets?

The Visa Greencard has teamed up with RePay International to come up with a formula to determine how much carbon is released into the atmosphere during the manufacturing of each product purchased with the credit card. The card then automatically purchases carbon offsets, in this case planting trees in Netherlands, Ecuador, and Uganda, in that amount.

What are carbon offsets?

Carbon offsets are the process of reducing a ton of carbon dioxide emissions in another location for the emissions you cause in either your home, office, commute, travel or other activities that use energy and cause emissions.

So, according to fastcompany.com:

A $300 airline ticket generates 2,037 pounds of CO2, which requires 46 trees; RePay foots the bill (from $5 to $18) for buying and planting the trees.

The card will be available later this month in the United States, and we'll link to it when that happens. So keep paying those balances off every month, and pay back our big, beautiful Gaia at the same time.