Many Vermonters talk about "renewable energy credits" and "carbon offsets" to fight global warming. But Native Energy, a Charlotte-based company that sells them, says more people just wonder what the buzz is about.

Clients ranging from Ben & Jerry's to the Dave Matthews Band have turned to Native Energy since 2000 to invest in wind farms and cow methane power projects that reduce the burning of fossil fuels blamed for global warming. But the general public is just learning about the practice, in part because of recent publicity by ski areas and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who announced a plan to make his congressional offices "carbon neutral."

Most Vermonters can't install enough rooftop solar panels or backyard windmills to unplug from their local power company. But they can offset the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases created by traditional electrical generation by funding renewable energy projects that feed cleaner power into the national supply.

Native Energy is one of a handful of major companies now helping individuals and organizations calculate their greenhouse gas emissions and, in effect, cancel them out by reducing pollution through wind and methane projects in other parts of the country.

"It's an American-made fuel source that's free and renewable," Native Energy spokesman Billy Connelly says. "We have cleaner air, less asthma, less mercury ending up in our ground and oceans."

Native Energy, with a staff of 10, is different from its competitors in one respect: It is owned in part by the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, a nonprofit organization of Great Plains Tribes.

"Some of these tribes are the poorest in the country but have the wind potential on their reservations to power a substantial portion of the current United States electricity load," Connelly says. "We're helping these tribes to develop economic opportunity."

Native Energy also is helping family farms capture the methane from cow manure and turn it into power, as well as install wind turbines where appropriate.

The company has thousands of individual and business clients. The Middlebury College Snow Bowl, for example, is offsetting the carbon emissions from its electric, gas, propane, diesel and biodiesel use by investing in two projects: the Rosebud Sioux reservation wind farm in South Dakota and the Penn England family dairy farm methane project in Williamsburg, Pa.

Welch, for his part, is paying to offset the fuel and electricity-related emissions from his Vermont and Washington offices and car and air travel. In return, Native Energy is funding a biomass pellet-fired boiler at Vermont Technical College in Randolph and a methane digester project on a dairy farm in Westminster.

Welch is paying the $672 annual cost out of his own pocket, as federal law won't let him tap his office budget. But the congressman wants to change that: He's introducing a bill to authorize federal offices to pay for such offsets.

"If my office budget can be used for activities that pollute, I believe those same resources should be available for offsetting that pollution," Welch said in a statement.

Former Vice President Al Gore agrees. He and Paramount Pictures tapped Native Energy to help them offset the production of their global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

"Our business clients frequently get to choose which particular projects they wish to support," Connelly says. "We can't slice it up that finely with individuals, but we provide the option of 100 percent going to a wind project, 100 percent to a family dairy farm methane project or a 50-50 split."

Skeptical? Native Energy hires an independent certified public accountant to review its purchase and sales records and posts the information on its Web site, www.nativeenergy.com. The site also promotes energy conservation so people ultimately won't have to buy offsets.

"This isn't a way for people to assuage their guilt and continue on with the habits that have gotten us into this mess," Connelly says. "Our goal is to get people to increase their energy-efficiency so that they buy less and less from us each year."


Contact Kevin O'Connor at kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com.