With the weeks of constant travel, the late-night strategy meetings and the distribution of countless pamphlets and signs — much of it ending up in landfill — election campaigns can have a pretty oversized environmental footprint.

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Ontario Votes 2007

Faced with the guilt of creating thousands of tonnes of campaign-related emissions, and possibly their own rhetoric, politicians have started embracing the carbon neutral trend.

A handful of environmentally conscious campaigners have been doing this for a few years now, but 2007 saw these efforts move from the fringe to the mainstream, and from individual candidates to parties themselves.

Manitoba's provincial election saw the country's first party effort for a carbon-neutral campaign — by the opposition Liberals who elected two candidates. But the current Ontario election campaign has ramped it up another notch.

All four of the main parties — the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Green — are running what they call carbon-neutral leaders' tours and local campaigns.

This effort appears to be the first multi-party carbon-neutral election campaign in the country, and probably even in the world.

Word of the year

Canada's not the only country surfing the carbon-neutral wave. An Australian state candidate claims to be the first politician in the world to run one earlier this year, in March 2007, and at least two federal parties in Australia are planning to 'offset' their campaigns in the next general election there.

An Irish senator also ran a carbon-offsetting campaign in the spring, as are at least three presidential candidates in the United States — Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Chris Dodd, all Democrats.

Carbon offsets have been a hot topic lately, with celebrities and now politicians, purchasing carbon credits to help make their lives, tours and movies carbon neutral. It's become such a trend that the New Oxford American Dictionary chose "carbon neutral" as the word of the year in 2006. But what does it mean?

Simply put, it's a way of trying to balance out many of the activities of modern life, such as electricity use and travel, which burn fossil fuels. That burning leads to carbon emissions that are among the principal causes of global warming.

Because living a totally carbon-free lifestyle is extremely difficult, if not impossible, carbon offset programs offer consumers — and now politicians — a chance to invest in projects that reduce emissions equal to what is being produced. In effect, neutralizing the emissions.

Offset programs often invest in projects such as energy retrofits or solar energy or tree planting. However, tree planting as an offset has suffered a recent decline in popularity, because trees act solely as a "sponge" for carbon, drawing it out of the atmosphere, but they do nothing to reduce the production of future emissions.

Critics also say that offset programs as a whole fail to change consumption patterns and effectively encourage consumers to continue polluting the environment guilt-free. But that hasn't stopped the political crowd from getting into the act.

Greening politicians

In his bid for the New South Wales state parliament, Australian Peter Schmigel reduced his carbon emissions by using carbon-neutral fuels in campaign vehicles, cycling on trips around his riding and using renewable energy for his campaign office and election venues. He was not elected.

In Ireland, Independent Senator Joe O'Toole had Irish offset company called Captured Carbon audit his campaign and then offset his calculated emissions with a UN-certified emissions reductions investment.

In the U.S. presidential race, the cost of offsetting travel and other greenhouse gas-emitting practices is running into the thousands of dollars monthly. While in Manitoba, the provincial Liberals hit the campaign trail in a red hybrid car and purchased offsets to cover the remaining emissions.

Ontario's experience has been a little different. Before the election campaigns started in September, all four major parties consulted with carbon-offset companies to learn how to reduce and offset their travel-intensive provincial tours.

One of those was a Toronto-based carbon-offset company Carbon Zero. Its president, Howie Chong, said Carbon Zero looked at the parties' 2003 campaigns and their current plans to help them discover how many tonnes they would emit, how they could reduce that amount and how they could offset the remainder.

He said when calculating emissions, the company considers factors like fuel, electricity and flights then calculates the total damage based on Canadian government statistics.

The parties then pay a $22-per-tonne fee, which is invested in energy retrofits for charitable agencies and renewable energy projects in Ontario.

"All the projects are energy-based projects and they prevent the burning of fossil fuels at the source," Chong said, adding that the projects are verified by arms-length organizations to ensure the correct tonnage has actually been reduced.

Once the campaign ends, the parties will once again meet with Carbon Zero to evaluate their emission reduction efforts. Chong said there was no pre-existing agreement to purchase more offsets in the case of emissions over the expected tonnage.

The Ontario campaigns

NDP Leader Howard Hampton swapped the traditional leader's bus for a Get Orange-branded hybrid sports utility vehicle. The support staff and media are traveling by bus. Campaign team member Kaj Hasselriis said the switch reduced campaign emissions by 24 tonnes, a 25-per cent cut from the 2003 campaign.

The party has also reduced emissions by flying a Dash 8-100 twin-engine, medium range plane, and using local, organic produce and biodegradable plates, cutlery and cleaning supplies.

Hasselriis said the party purchased about $20,000 in offsets, the equivalent of just over 900 tonnes, from Carbon Zero to cover the entire provincial campaign, including all the candidates and their headquarters.

These offsets will be used for solar hot water projects for a community housing project in Toronto, an Etobicoke church residence, pools in Mississauga and Kitchener and a renewable energy project for a first nations community.

The Liberals also changed their travel plans for the campaign, switching to ultra-low-sulphur diesel buses, which drastically cut smog-causing emissions.

Ben Chin, with the Liberal campaign team, said much thought went into the choice of bus over a biodiesel model.

"The problem with biodiesel is that it's not readily available in all of the province," he explained, saying that meant if the buses needed refueling in one of those areas, someone would need to drive the fuel to them. With the fuel-transporting emissions factored in, along with the fact the buses were models from 2003, the diesel bus turned out to have the lowest emissions.

The party is also reducing its emissions through efforts at the campaign office to reduce paper and other waste, Chin said. The party has offset about five tonnes per candidate, or 535 tonnes. These emissions are being monitored and verified by Carbon Zero and another carbon-offset company, Zerofootprint.

The Progressive Conservatives switched to biodiesel buses. The party purchased a total of 45 tonnes worth of offsets from Toronto-based, vehicle offset company called reknewco ltd. Of those offsets, 31 tonnes were used to cover the campaign RV and 14 tonnes were purchased to cover the two biodiesel buses.

Green Party candidates were individually responsible for running carbon neutral campaigns.

"At the provincial level, our focus has been on carbon reduction rather than offsets," explained provincial campaign manager Jeff Brownridge. "Our goal is to be as close to neutral as possible."

As a result, party leader Frank de Jong walks, bicycles or takes public transit whenever possible. The rest of the time, he drives a borrowed Volkswagen Golf that runs on straight vegetable oil. When oil isn't available, the car can be switched to burn diesel fuel.

Weather permitting, Brownridge said de Jong might make one flight during the month-long campaign, from Sault. St. Marie to Thunder Bay with a supporter who is a private pilot.

The campaign team has been tracking de Jong's transportation use and will purchase offsets investing in energy retrofit programs to cover any emissions at the end of the campaign, which Brownridge said probably wouldn't surpass seven to 10 tonnes.

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