Green Mountain Energy has launched a site called "Be Green," a social network/community platform dedicated to a carbon neutral lifestyle. Members can calculate their carbon footprints, then determine and buy offsets, which come from from renewable energy facilities and tree-planting projects mapped on the site. There's also a toolkit with other suggestions for being green. The toolkit also has a Be Green movement bug ... "copy and paste the code ... into your MySpace page or personal website and spreed BeGreen!" There are also bugs to show your carbon neutrality percentage or how many tons you've offset. The site also shows a total of community offsets (currently 367 tons). The social network aspect of the site isn't especially robust – you probably won't ditch Myspace to hang out at BeGreen – but the whole package a pretty slick approach to offsetting; it'll be interesting to see the level of adoption over time, and how many tons are offset as a result. Holiday note: you can "give the gift of green" via the site, essentially paying the cost of having one tree planted in the giftee's behalf (cheaper than giving a tree and a shovel, and easier to wrap...)
