BusinessWeek: Martin Hughes is not your typical hybrid-driving, clean-energy fanatic. Hughes and his wife, both longtime oil-industry veterans, zoom around Houston in no-compromise vehicles. His, a Nissan Xterra SUV. Hers, a zippy Volkswagen Passat.
Yet when Hughes heard last year about an environmental startup called TerraPass Inc., he was intrigued. The Menlo Park (Calif.) company sells "green tags," which cost up to $80 a year and which are designed to offset the emissions a car spews into the air during that period. After taking a small cut of each sale, TerraPass pools its members' fees and invests them in clean energy production, including wind power. Hughes checked out the service online last August and then forked over $129 for two TerraPass windshield decals. "I was impressed," he says. "It's a for-profit product that allows you to exercise your conscience."
TerraPass is channeling the good intentions of individual consumers concerned about carbon emissions, which are linked with global warming. U.S. companies are also adopting the certificates, in part because they wish to cater to this growing, green constituency. But the tags, which are now America's fastest-growing alternative-energy product, aren't simply a marketing vehicle. U.S. businesses have watched Europe and Japan adopt tough regulations on carbon emissions and say the tags could help them prepare for similar developments in the U.S.
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