A carbon footprint is defined by the emissions of greenhouse gases associated with any specific activity or transaction. The carbon footprint of driving is primarily made of CO2emissions. With transport being responsible for nearly 30% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions, 72% comes from road transportation, of which cars account for 60%.

Carbon offsetting is a climate action that enables individuals and organizations to address the CO2 emissions they cannot avoid by supporting projects - like clean-energy producing wind farms or forestry projects - that verifiably reduce, capture, or avoid a proportional amount of CO2 emissions. Said another way, carbon offsetting enables you as a traveller to balance the carbon emissions released as a result of your travelling.

We calculate the footprint based on the longest possible journey on the UK National Express coach network of 567 miles for a single passenger, which emits about 25kg of carbon equivalent (CO2e) per journey. To account for any older vehicles within the fleet and to make a conservative estimation to ensure you are making a climate-positive contribution from your journey, we are using a higher estimation based on published emissions factors and doubling the CO2e to 50kg. Emission factor calculations from travelling by coach with National Express are taken from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) 2020 Government GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting. CO2e includes carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide with Global Warming Potential (GWP) calculated using the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report.

When travellers offset their carbon footprint, funds are applied to help support projects that reduce, capture, or avoid carbon emissions in an amount equivalent to that of their calculated carbon footprint. All of the funds are applied directly to the projects. Carbon offsetting is performed through the purchase and retirement of third-party verified and certified carbon emission reductions, also called carbon credits or carbon offsets. The carbon credits made available to National Express are called Verified Carbon Units, issued by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Certified Emission Reductions, issued by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Gold Standard (GS). The VCS and the GS are independent certification standards, while the CDM is a United Nations mechanism. One of these projects even has the additional FairTrade certification. Each carbon credit is equivalent to 1 tonne of CO2e. Travellers will offset more than their calculated footprint - never less.

All projects that CHOOOSE™ make available to National Express travellers are subject to ongoing and regular monitoring, reporting, and auditing to ensure that they remain in compliance with international standards and operational best practices.

To guarantee that your offset has a climate-positive impact, National Express has partnered with climate-tech company CHOOOSE™. From its base in Oslo, Norway, CHOOOSE delivers a platform that enables both individuals and organizations to easily connect with the best CO2e reducing climate projects around the world. Through its API for climate impact, CHOOOSE programmatically calculates your travel footprint and provides you with the option to seamlessly offset your journey through trusted climate projects.