Good for the environment and a trip for me!
A few months ago, Macdonald Realty Ltd. had a contest asking realtors to submit ideas to help Macdonald Realty be a better environmentally responsible company. The winner received a trip to Hawaii-it was great!
My idea focused on addressing the issue of climate change, since realtors drive so much and contribute to the problem. The idea won first prize and the program has now been implemented....so here it is:
I was hoping to get realtors to pollute less using a descending scale of activities (like paper use-first reduce what you use, then reuse what you use, then recycle)... since the transportation sector is the largest emitter of green houses gases in the Province, it seemed a good place to start.
I would like to see realtors:
-drive cars that emit less pollutants (I have had clients make fun of my 4 cylinder car since it is apparently not up to the standard for a top selling realtor!);
-drive less (for example we plan our showings in the way that most reduces kms covered. I would like to be the running, riding realtor but to date only one of my clients advocated that we ride our bikes to a showing-which we did-much to the surprise of the seller!) ; and
-buy carbon credits to compensate for the driving that they do have to do.
My proposal to the Macdonald Realty contest advocated these changes and the last step has now been adopted.
Macdonald Realty has now implemented what we are quite sure is the only program in North America where realtors will buy carbon credits to make its transactions "carbon neutral". Our company has teamed up with Offsetters Climate Neutral Society-a non-profit, Vancouver based offset provider ("Offsetters").
So what is carbon offsetting? it is where an individual or company donates money in an amount necessary to compensate for the emissions created, to a third party organization (Offsetters for example) to fund projects that will remove the equivalent amount of emissions from the environment. In addition to providing for clients to register to have offset credits purchased to neutralize the enviromental effect of their purchase or sales transaction, Macdonald is buying credits corporately to compensate for the emissions created by commuting by its office staff.
So now whenever our clients buy or sell with us, they can register to have us buy credits to compensate for emissions created during their transaction! And in some cases there will be double benefits to the environment where the realtors buy carbon credits to compensate for the whole year of driving they do on all of their deals-it isn't very expensive so I am hoping that all of the realtors in our office will also buy their Cool Drive Passes! I just got mine and will be affixing it to my car!
If you would like more information about this project, pls call me or visit http://www.macrealty.com/macgreen/index.aspx for more information.