This site can provide you with an estimate of the carbon emissions incurred due to plane travel and allows you to buy on-chain carbon credits and retire them on the Polygon network in order to offset the estimated emissions.
The carbon offset button initiates an on-chain transaction which exchanges the tokens specified by the user into NCT tokens on Sushiswap. It then exchanges (redeems) these NCT tokens into tokens of a specific carbon reduction project and then irrevocably retires these project tokens using Toucan Protocol's smart contracts. All these steps are done in one transaction and can be verified on-chain. Here is an example of such a transaction using USDC as an input token: offset transaction.
disCarbon does not currently add any fees. The entire offset amount stated is used to buy and retire carbon credits. In a later version we will enable users to make a voluntary contribution. If enabled, this will add a small percentage to the transaction which goes to disCarbon. This helps disCarbon keep this project up and running and build even better carbon offset tools.
It stands for "tonnes of carbon dioxide"/"tonnes of CO2" that needs to be compensated so that a flight has zero impact on the climate. More precisely it actually stands for CO2 equivalent emission, as an airplane emits more climate active pollutants than just CO2. The influence of all these other pollutants is accounted for in the tCO2 estimation.
At the moment one can choose between MATIC, USDC, WETH, WMATIC and the NCT token by clicking on the "MATIC" ticker in the flight offsetter.
The NCT token represents one tonne of carbon in any of the nature-based carbon projects in the NCT pool. This makes carbon certificates fungible among different projects and allows for a liquid carbon market. Only when the carbon certificates are retired does the smart contract choose a specific project to retire from.
The offsetter automatically retires tokens from a carbon reduction project provided by the Toucan Bridge. The offset project currently used is a forest protection project called North Pikounda REDD+ in the Republic of the Congo.
Not yet. At the moment the offsetter automatically retires carbon certificates by the default project provided by the Toucan Protocol smart contracts. In future iterations the offsetter will make it possible to choose from amongst several dozens projects available in the NCT pool.
Yes. Just click on the box to the left of the TCO2 units, above the green line and manually fill in the amount of carbon you want to offset.
We use the emission estimation model developed by myclimate. This is an established model which has been found to be one of the best ones in terms of accuracy (see page 86 in the linked report, only available in German). A more detailed comparison between different estimation models and their accuracy can be found in our recent post.
The flight class directly influences the space a single passenger has available for themselves. This means fewer people can fit on a plane the more higher class seating is available. Therefore, the flight emission is divided through fewer passengers, in turn increasing the carbon emission per passenger. In addition higher class tickets have a larger baggage allowance and more elaborate meals.
To calculate the carbon emission, a lot of assumptions need to be made. Some influencing factors are the weather, the airplane type, the seat occupancy, cargo load, emission from the airport infrastructure, carbon emission from jet fuel production. A critical part of any emission model is to also consider non-CO2 emissions. Our model considers them. Many other estimators with lower calculated emissions do not. Most of the above mentioned factors cannot be known for a specific flight and therefore need to be calculated from general number of average emissions of the flight industry. As our approach is to make it as simple as possible for the user to offset their emission, we do not provide such a user configurable flight emission estimator, but focus on the typical emission for a certain flight distance.
If a more detailed analysis is desired, atmosfair is a very detailed and accurate estimation tool. The calculated carbon emission can then be manually filled in the disCarbon flight offsetter and be offset on chain. Google flights is a popular choice but unfortunately we cannot recommend it for emission offsetting as they underestimate the climate impact of a flight.
disCarbon are danceratopz and haurog. Our goal is to accelerate the adoption of on-chain carbon credits. The existing off-chain carbon market is opaque, illiquid and benefits middlemen as apposed to the underlying carbon offset projects that positively impact our planet. A liquid on-chain market allows carbon offset projects to manage their own carbon credits, enabling them to obtain market prices when required. Our hope is that this leads to the faster creation of high quality carbon offset projects.
At the moment the best way to support us is by using and sharing our tools! Later you will be able to voluntarily make a small contribution when you perform the offset transaction to disCarbon.
Feel free to write to "danceratopz" on Twitter, Telegram or Gmail.