Danielle: Hopefully, this eco-wedding series has helped you learn how to reduce the impact of your special day without compromising any of your dreams. For the final step, we’re going to talk to Ivan Chan of Carbonfund.org. So, welcome, thank you so much for meeting us virtually.

Ivan: Thank you.  And I think this is a great way of showing how people can communicate or connect without necessarily driving or flying someplace and, you know, it’s a great example.

Danielle: So tell me, for the viewers out there who don’t really know what offsets are, just kind of a general explanation of that and then more specifically what Carbonfund is about and what sets you apart from some of the other offsetting companies?

Ivan:  Well, carbon offsetting lets people take action about global warming now.  What we offer at Carbonfund.org is a way for individuals, businesses, and organizations to help reduce what they can and then offset the rest by basically supporting verified carbon-reduction projects.

Danielle: Let’s talk specifically about how Carbonfund helps to reduce the impact of weddings and events.

Ivan: We operate at the Carbonfund.org site a calculator whereby couples can calculate the impact of their wedding, particularly as you know transportation being what it is, a large part of weddings, couples can measure what is the carbon footprint of their wedding in terms of the transportation that’s used for themselves as well as their guests, the actual flights and auto trips, as well as the hotel stays, because each hotel night contributes a carbon footprint of a wedding.  We even offer couples the chance to offset the rehearsal dinner, so we teamed with an organization called WeddingWire, it’s a company located in Bethesda where we have incorporated our wedding calculator on their personalized wedding websites.

Danielle: Also, weddings provide a great opportunity for couples to even learn about this whole world of offsetting that many people don’t know about and then it’s something that they can start to use and apply to the rest of their life, like travel throughout the year as well as any sort of energy usage in the home, etc.

Ivan: Every day people can take action for their carbon footprint by first calculating what their footprint is.  We offer a number of different calculators on Carbonfund.org.

Danielle: All right, Ivan, well, thank you so much.  This is excellent.  And hopefully a lot of our brides will introduce this into their sustainable eco-wedding.

Ivan: All right.  Well, thanks so much, Danielle.