The most general, and diverse, group of travellers is the general motoring public. In Victoria, about 90% of households have one or more vehicles, with each vehicle travelling an average of about 14000 km per year and emitting about 4.3 tonnes of CO2 per year. Motorists have the option of offsetting these emissions by tree planting in harvested plantations through the payment of an annual TreeSmart subscription.
It is realised that different types of vehicle travel different amounts per year, hence emitting different amounts of CO2. The average sequestration price per tonne of CO2 would be about $12.00, leading to a sequestration price per kilometre of travel (for the average car) of about 0.3 cents per kilometre. However, because of the substantial costs involved in verifying travel distances per year, it would be too onerous to have a usage-based subscription for general motorists. Therefore a flat-rate TreeSmart subscription would apply to all passenger vehicles. The subscription cost is $50/vehicle/year for passenger vehicles.
The TreeSmart subscriptions for the general motoring public operate only through this web-based subscription system. TreeSmart will respond with the following:
- A Letter of Acknowledgement, including details of project auditing
- A TreeSmart bumper sticker for the year of subscription
- A Location Map of the sequestration trees for that subscriber
