“I wouldn’t call myself a hard core environmentalist,” says Adam Kreek, the Canadian behind
getting his Olympic Champion team to the Beijing start line in a carbon neutral way.
Carbon neutral concerns the desire to offset
and/or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide
emissions that we all produce. Carbon dioxide is
one of the greenhouse gases which is believed
to be a factor in climate change. It is released into
the atmosphere from a number of sources, the
major one being from the burning of fossil fuels
(like petrol).
For Kreek, time spent in the outdoors stimulated
his desire to act responsibly towards the
environment. “In a sport like rowing there is
continual interaction with our environment. For
five to six hours a day we are outside, so you do
end up forming a bond with nature and noticing
the changes season to season. It has given me a
higher awareness.”
As rowers and rowing administrators, one of the
main ways we produce carbon dioxide is in our
transport to and from rowing venues, especially
international air flights.
Kreek wanted to do something about his impact
on the environment. “When a problem arises,
I don’t want to be a contributor, I want to work
around it.”
Currently there are three main methods of
offsetting or reducing the carbon dioxide that
we use:
1. Reduce or avoid activities that cause carbon
emissions.
2. Buy carbon credits that can then be traded.
3. Offset carbon by paying others to remove
carbon dioxide emitted, for example by
planting trees or funding ‘carbon projects’.
Seven seat of the Canadian men’s eight, Kreek
looked at what his team could do to reduce
their carbon footprint as they prepared for the
2008 Beijing Olympics. They chose the carbon
offsetting way.
“We wanted to offset all of our training and
competing at the Olympics. We used the gold
standard carbon offsets.” This was accounted for
by an outside organisation called Planet Air. >
