Donors Can Choose to Support the Causes They Care About while
Minimizing Carbon Footprint
WASHINGTON, July 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- GlobalGiving, the
leading online marketplace for philanthropy, today launched GlobalGiving
Green(TM), http://www.globalgiving.com/green, a one of a kind scoring
system that measures the climate impact of social entrepreneurs and other
development projects in communities around the world, from Nepal and
Tanzania, to Honduras and the United States.
The developing world faces a double burden: Climate change threatens
poor communities with economic devastation in the form of floods, droughts,
and ruined harvests. But every developed country in the world today has
come to its wealth and well-being through a carbon-intensive path, that if
repeated across the developing world today would cancel out any efforts we
have made to combat global warming to date or in the future.
"Through GlobalGiving Green we are taking an unprecedented approach to
supporting development through a climate change lens," said Dennis Whittle,
co-founder and CEO of GlobalGiving. "The goal is to set the standard for
evaluating grassroots, on-the-ground projects against criteria that take
into account both environmental and other development-related
'co-benefits.' With this additional layer of screening, people who want to
'give green' have the information and tools to do so quickly and easily."
GlobalGiving worked with EcoSecurities, a world leader in emissions
reduction markets, to develop a framework to score the climate change
impact of grassroots development projects. Each project is evaluated not
only according to how well it helps reduce harmful emissions, but also how
it stacks up in areas such as providing sustainable, positive economic
growth, aiding the culture and environment of a community, educating future
generations on green techniques, and more.
"Companies and individuals increasingly want to help mitigate climate
change, but it's not always easy for them to determine what they're really
accomplishing," said Dr. Mark C. Trexler, Managing Director of
EcoSecurities Global Consulting Services. "For GlobalGiving Green, we
developed an innovative approach to assess the true environmental impact of
each project, by measuring not only its affect on global warming, but how
well it contributes to sustainable development, new technological
innovation and the community's ability to adapt to a changing climate. With
this tool, GlobalGiving donors can see at a glance how their donations are
working to fight climate change."
GlobalGiving Green is the first step towards creating a market-based
incentive for green development to thrive, by helping to effectively
translate the demand for climate change solutions to community leaders and
social entrepreneurs on the ground, helping them understand how their
proposed solutions can build a carbon-neutral path to development. By
increasing the access and awareness of these projects at the grassroots
level, smaller climate change mitigation projects that normally don't get
funded by offset retailers will be able to compete.
"Through the GlobalGiving Green scoring system, both donors and social
entrepreneurs or others working on development projects around the world
will know how their proposed activity impacts climate change," added Mari
Kuraishi, co-founder and President of GlobalGiving. "Armed with this
knowledge, individuals most concerned about climate change can
systematically search for, and identify the most promising solutions that
are creating positive change, developing responsibly, and reducing harmful
emissions."
About GlobalGiving
GlobalGiving (http://www.globalgiving.com) is the leading Internet-based
network for peer-to-peer philanthropy. Our mission is to sustain a
high-powered marketplace for good that connects donors directly to the
causes they care most about. Through GlobalGiving, individuals and
corporations can maximize the impact of every dollar by efficiently and
transparently directing their donations to projects here at home and around
the world. Since its launch in 2002, GlobalGiving has helped thousands of
donors give over $11 million to approximately 1,000 projects. GlobalGiving
is based in Washington, D.C.
Media Contact:
Angela Pauly: 202-478-6139, apauly@mrss.com
Joan Ochi: 202-232-5784, jochi@globalgiving.com
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