Carbon Mitigation

Our commitment to finding solutions for climate change extends throughout our company.

It's reflected in our investment criteria, our activism and education efforts, our partnerships in our regional community and in industry groups, and our consideration of our own direct impacts. We focus on two areas to reduce our climate impact: 1) offsetting emissions from energy use in our Portland office, and 2) offsetting emissions from work-related travel.

Green Energy Commitment

We purchase carbon offsets from Bonneville Environmental Foundation for the electricity and natural gas usage in our Portland office. These offsets support the development of clean, renewable energy sources like solar power and wind farms. We're working with our community of tenants on long-term renewable energy projects and carbon mitigation efforts.

Employee commuting

As a part of our company's benefits package, we provide incentives to minimize single occupancy vehicle travel by reimbursing the cost of public transportation or bicycle maintenance for employees.

Work Related Travel

The other focus of our carbon mitigation program is emissions caused by travel. Our goal is to reduce our output of carbon dioxide and to mitigate the emissions associated with travel that cannot be avoided. We recognize that some travel is necessary, such as occasional trips to see clients, attend conferences, or conduct site visits on companies in which we invest.

Travel data is collected monthly from our employees and we calculate annually the total metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted. We then calculate a monetary figure based on these emissions, which is allotted to support carbon reduction projects in the Pacific Northwest. The cost of mitigation is surprisingly low so we multiply the monetary figure by a factor of ten, which represents the additional environmental impacts associated with travel. This final cost is then deducted from each employee's annual bonus as an incentive to minimize his or her own business travel.

Investments in carbon reduction projects have included Bonneville Environmental Foundation's Solar 4R Schools.