User:Mattkling/Brighter Planet

Brighter Planet is a social enterprise whose products and services help customers to manage their impact on climate change. Founded in 2006, it is based jointly in Vermont and San Francisco. In 2010, Brighter Planet was noted as "Best Small Business" by the sustainability outlet TreeHugger, and recognized with the "Most Strategic Philanthropy" Social Innovation Award from Financial Times.

Overview
Brighter Planet sells carbon offsets that fund the construction of renewable energy projects, operates a Web 2.0 site that aims to help individuals measure and reduce their carbon footprint, and offers an API service that allows software developers to integrate carbon emissions modeling into their own applications.

In partnership with Bank of America, Brighter Planet offers a credit card and debit card that accrue points that are applied toward the construction of renewable energy projects.

Projects
Brighter Planet uses proceeds from carbon offset sales and from it's affinity card partnerships with Bank of America to fund small-scale emissions-reducing projects in the United States. Project types in their carbon portfolio include wind turbines and farm methane digesters.

The company also funnels a portion of its revenue into a philanthropy program called the Project Fund, which uses a web-based crowdsourcing model to distribute monthly grants to small-scale projects that fight climate change.