Irish Chauffeurs And Vita Partnership

Irish Chauffeurs and Vita are partnering up to deliver a strong and positive response to climate change through a unique carbon offset programmes. Together we will help some of the world’s most disadvantaged people who are suffering the most from the deteriorating climate.

Vita is an Irish NGO, is over 30 years old and works with rural communities in Africa to deliver clean water and clean cooking. When women and children have to spend large chunks of their time gathering wood and fetching water it interferes massively with school attendance for the kids and work opportunities for the mother.

Vita’s improved stoves are 60% more fuel efficient, meaning a lot lessA wood to gather. Vita also repairs broken community water points and this saves not only the time involved in fetching water over long distances but as these water sources are often shared with animals the water is dirty and disease-ridden. As clean water does not need to be boiled this saves even more wood.

Burning wood depletes the local forestry but also creates carbon greenhouse gas emissions that cause a lot of damage to the atmosphere. Reducing the amount of wood being burnt gives the local forestry an opportunity to replenish. Each tonne of carbon save from being emitted is called a carbon offset, and this is registered and verified by an international Swiss organisation called The Gold Standard. It can then be sold to help offset an organisation like Irish Chauffeurs to offset their carbon footprint.

All profits from the sale are ploughed right back into the communities who generate the carbon offsets in the first place, making Vita’s model one of the most equitable and circular in existence.

Annually, Irish Chauffeurs will support 500 people access clean water and safe cooking, which secures their health and future by giving children the opportunity to go to school and mothers the opportunity to use the new-found time to generate an income and escape the poverty net.