Creating public support for a global record of individuals’ efforts towards combating climate change

** N.B. Offsetting here does not refer to low quality offsets which have received criticism, but specifically expensive high quality offsets that have been fully validated, and are effective and ethical. **

The innovation of Indigobo is to seek to create an alliance between those with a below-average carbon footprint and everyone else who is willing to spend a significant amount of money on projects reducing carbon emissions.

The idea is that even for those with a high personal carbon footprint, there should be a compensatory level of spending (S) where that individual could be regarded positively by environmentalists (although that level may be very high).

S = P * Q
and
Q = k E
where
S = total amount of spending on offsetting carbon emissions
P = price paid to offset each tonne
Q = total amount of tonnes offset
k = coefficient representing the number of times emissions are offset
E = lifetime carbon emissions

If P is set sufficiently high to ensure high-quality verified carbon offsets, k can be 2 (double offsetting), 3 (triple offsetting) or even higher.

The idea is that there must be a level, k, at which point an individual with high E should be regarded positively by environmentalists and categorised at least as positively as those with below-average emissions.

One of the goals of the Indigobo Public Good Institute under EIZ Global LTD is to create global support for public registers of environmental records with regard to carbon emissions:
individuals' carbon footprint together with records of money spent on high-quality offset projects and other environmental initiatives aimed at reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere should be recorded.

The primary purpose of such an alliance would be to increase the amount of support for monitoring individuals’ carbon emissions together with the amount spent reducing carbon emissions. Once such records are established, it is possible to create stronger incentives for society to channel efforts towards reducing carbon emissions.

Currently, the level of investment in measures to reduce carbon emissions is far below what it should be. If individuals with relatively high emissions recognised that it would be possible to be recognised positively by environmentalists by setting a high value for k, they might be more willing to support the idea of higher monitoring. And with higher monitoring comes lower emissions.

Understanding the compensation and monitoring intensity principles of the economists Milgrom and Roberts, it is clear that creating the right environment for monitoring of effort is key to being able to create incentives towards changing people’s priorities.

k might need to be very high for such an alliance, but entertaining the possibility that there is such a level, creates the opportunity for more efforts around the globe to be united towards combating climate change.