Carbon offsetting is a tricky business. (For an introduction, please see Wikipedia). It's certainly not the answer to climate change, but it's part of the solution in an imperfect world. In our opinion, it should be the last step we take in dealing with our own contributions to climate change.
The first thing we should do is try to prevent those carbon emissions from being produced in the first place. As a company, that means doing all we can to make our buildings energy efficient, reducing the number of miles our books travel from printing press to book shop, cutting down our staff transport and encouraging our readers to travel overland and not by air.
But, as much as we try, we can't completely stop emitting carbon. Our inspectors have to travel to our properties (albeit sometimes in biodiesel or LPG-powered cars) and our books have to hitch a ride on a lorry to the shops.
So, to deal with the relatively small emissions that we do make (now that we've built our wonderful new eco-offices), we've teamed up with SCAD (Social Change and Development) in India.
We are also working closely with owners and other green friends.
You may be interested in reading more about Tourism Concern, a UK charity promoting responsible tourism.
Bello Mundo is a free downloadable magazine on responsible tourism from the Sustravel team »
If you choose to fly as part of your holiday, please consider offsetting your carbon emissions with Climate Care »
