Carbon Offsetting Your Dive Trips - Does It Work?
Explore how carbon offsetting works for divers, where your money goes, and practical steps to reduce your dive trip’s environmental impact.
PRESERVING OUR GREAT LAKES AND OCEANS
Carbon Offsetting Your Dive Trips - Does It Work?
Traveling to your favorite dive spots—especially by plane—adds carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, threatening the oceans we love. Carbon offsetting is a way to balance out those emissions, but what does it really mean, and is it effective?
What Is Carbon Offsetting?
When you offset carbon, you invest in projects that reduce or capture greenhouse gases elsewhere to “neutralize” your own emissions. These projects include:
Planting or protecting forests, which absorb CO₂ as they grow
Developing renewable energy sources like wind or solar
Capturing methane gas from landfills and farms to prevent it entering the atmosphere
Restoring ocean ecosystems like mangroves and seagrasses that store carbon
Where Does Your Offset Money Go?
Your offset payments support a mix of these projects, often in areas where they can have the biggest impact. This isn’t just “paying to plant trees”—it’s funding diverse solutions to reduce greenhouse gases globally.
How Much Does Carbon Offsetting Cost?
For a typical round-trip flight to a dive destination (for example, the Caribbean), your carbon emissions might be 1 to 2 metric tons of CO₂. Offsetting this usually costs between $10 and $30 depending on the program and project type.
Popular Offset Programs for Divers
Gold Standard: Supports renewable energy and forest conservation. Prices average around $10 per metric ton.
Atmosfair: Focuses on clean energy projects. Offsets typically cost $15 to $25 per metric ton.
MyClimate: Funds renewable energy and community development projects, averaging about $15 per metric ton.
How Can Divers Offset Their Trips?
Some airlines and booking sites offer carbon offsets as an add-on when purchasing tickets.
Independent platforms like Carbonfund.org and Terrapass let you calculate your flight emissions and buy offsets easily online.
Does Carbon Offsetting Actually Work?
Carbon offsetting can be an effective tool to reduce your overall carbon footprint—if the projects you support are credible, transparent, and well-managed. Certified programs with strong standards like Gold Standard or Verified Carbon Standard ensure the money goes to real, verifiable emissions reductions.
That said, offsets are not a perfect solution. They don’t erase the emissions from your travel instantly; rather, they help fund actions that reduce emissions elsewhere over time. Offsetting should complement, not replace, efforts to reduce your personal emissions—like flying less, choosing direct flights, or supporting sustainable tourism.
For divers who care deeply about the oceans, carbon offsetting is a practical way to take responsibility for the impact of travel and support environmental projects that protect marine ecosystems and communities.
Limitations and Best Practices
Carbon offsetting helps, but it isn’t a license to pollute without care. The most impact comes from combining offsets with reducing emissions where possible—like choosing nonstop flights or combining dive trips to travel less often.
Happy and safe diving,
The ScubaBlast Team
Gold Standard. (n.d.). Certified climate projects. https://www.goldstandard.org
Climate Reality Project. (2021). Does carbon offsetting work? https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/does-carbon-offsetting-work
NOAA. (2022). Climate change impacts on oceans. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/climate-change.html