Expedia Goes Green By Adding TerraPass

Online travel company Expedia.com partnered with greenhouse reduction retailer TerraPass in an effort to attract ecologically responsible travelers.

Travelers who buy on Expedia, Bellevue, WA, can purchase carbon offsets when booking flights. These offsets are carbon dioxide reduction measures used to help cancel out greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming.

Expedia.com travelers can choose to buy three different TerraPass levels during the booking process on Expedia's Activities page. Customers will be offered a chance to purchase a TerraPass, which funds enough clean energy to balance out the CO2 emissions caused by their flights.

Airline travel currently accounts for about 13 percent of U.S. transportation-based emissions of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. A typical flight from New York to Los Angeles creates about 2,000 lbs. per passenger of carbon dioxide. Pricing starts at $5.99 to offset about 1,000 lbs of CO2, the approximate amount per passenger emitted by a 2,200 mile round-trip flight.

A TerraPass to cover cross-country and international flights costs $16.99 for up to 6,500 flight miles, and $29.99 for up to 13,000 flight miles.

TerraPass, Menlo Park, CA, funds domestic clean energy projects, such as wind farms, cow power methane capture plants and the retirement of carbon offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange.