Apr 27 - The Dallas Morning News

The Tonge family lives in a big brick house with an SUV parked in the garage, surrounded by the chemically green lawns and wide concrete roads of suburbia.

Not exactly a tree-hugger's paradise.

It's not that Phil Tonge rolls his eyes at environmentalism. The president of mass markets for electricity retailer Direct Energy prefers to walk to the nearest Starbucks rather than drive. He just never spent much time mulling the efficiency of his ductwork.

That changed last November. As Direct Energy began rolling out efficiency services and carbon-free energy, Mr. Tonge's boss challenged top executives to eliminate their own greenhouse gas emissions.

"You couldn't, with a straight face, talk about efficiency if you weren't doing something yourself," Mr. Tonge said.

The Tonges have answered the environmental altar call and are working to reduce their so-called carbon footprint. They're upgrading ductwork, walking instead of driving and switching their traditional light bulbs to compact fluorescent lights.

Direct Energy leaders are betting that other people will want to cut their carbon footprints, too. They're stepping into a crowded industry of companies and nonprofit groups offering services to eliminate or offset carbon dioxide emissions.

The carbon footprint challenge, issued to all of Direct Energy's top executives, allows Mr. Tonge, 54, to test how Direct Energy's green services might work together if the company packaged them into one carbon footprint-busting product.

Deryk King, chief executive of Direct Energy and the North American operations of parent company Centrica, gathered his nine top executives last year in his office in Toronto and asked each to calculate his carbon footprint.

"By doing it yourself, it becomes personal," Mr. King said. He's taking part, too: "As my lights go, I put in energy-efficient bulbs. And I don't like them."

Mr. Tonge found that he emitted a whopping 58.6 tons of greenhouse gases annually. That's much higher than the U.S. average of 16.64 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the Climate Trust Web site.

The Tonges had thought they were doing OK on energy consumption, especially after their kids left for college.

"The biggest single step toward green was getting my kids out of the house," Mr. Tonge joked.

To eliminate that footprint by the end of 2008, the family could simply buy carbon offsets to cover their own emissions. An offset represents 1 ton of carbon dioxide that's avoided through a green energy project elsewhere in the world. Buying offsets would cost the Tonges between $300 and $750, depending on which retailer they choose.

"It would have been very easy for us to just write a check out to offset our carbon footprint, but that would have been hypocritical," Mr. Tonge said.

Instead, he's spending thousands of dollars to upgrade his home's efficiency. And Mr. Tonge, who worked construction while attending college in Delaware, is doing a bit of the handiwork himself.

A Direct Energy efficiency expert discovered massive air leaks in the Tongues' ductwork and inefficient windows. But the biggest challenge so far has been changing the light bulbs.

The Tonge home is professionally decorated in shades of beige and taupe, with silk plants hanging over heavy, traditional furniture. Finding the right compact fluorescent bulbs for all of the 250 lights in the 5,200-square-foot house has been a struggle.

Matching lamps in the master bedroom now have bulbs that give off different colors of light. One bathroom turned out way too bright.

Plus, the new corkscrew-shaped bulbs don't fit into some of the older sockets and traditional-style lamps. So Mr. Tonge had to replace some of the fixtures.

"It does take several trips to the store to get it all," said Mr. Tonge's wife, Cheryl.

She's retired from AT&T Corp., where she met her husband. Recently, she's spent a lot of time waiting for contractors and researching windows.

Then there's the problem of screwing the new bulbs into the 30-foot living room ceiling fixtures. Even with an extension pole, it's tricky to change the bulbs without breaking them.

That makes Mrs. Tonge nervous, especially since the compact fluorescent bulbs contain a tiny amount of mercury and require special cleanup.

Transportation

All that work still doesn't cover transportation. Mr. Tonge owns two SUVs, using one in Plano and the second in Houston, where he spends about half his time for work.

Mr. Tonge flies at least once a week and racked up 200,000 miles last year.

"That's five weeks, 24 hours a day, inside a tube called an airplane," he said. "That's 10 percent of your year sitting in a tube."

This year, he'll use Direct Energy's new videoconferencing equipment for meetings in faraway places.

Mr. Tonge is more excited than most executives about telecommuting because he worked on AT&T's videoconferencing services years ago. AT&T moved him to Texas nine years ago, and he left the company when he was asked to move back East. The Tonges are from Delaware, but they like Texas.

The power of one

Skeptics might scoff at Mr. Tonge's green efforts. After all, one human can't stop the tide of global warming by denying himself a few luxuries.

Plus, Mr. Tonge, who has worked for Direct Energy for four years, isn't giving up his lifestyle to go to environmental extremes. He's not moving to a smaller home or filling in the swimming pool or turning vegan.

But environmentalists are still optimistic about the value of small, individual emission cuts.

"Every ton avoided is a ton avoided," said Tony Kreindler, a spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund.

By changing bulbs and upgrading ducts and windows, Mr. Tonge thinks he can cut his average monthly electricity bill to around $400 a month from $600.

The business of reducing personal carbon footprints is budding. Some people are taking steps to use energy more efficiently. A lot of people are buying offsets -- in essence, paying people to do it for them.

Direct Energy has plenty of competition. Dozens of Web sites sell carbon offsets, even though Americans aren't yet required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Companies can also trade carbon offset certificates on an exchange, much like stocks or bonds. In March, 8.3 million carbon financial instruments were traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange, up from 1.7 million a year ago. That's nearly a fivefold volume increase for a market that's voluntary.

In 2006, around 9.1 million tons of offset credits were sold in the U.S. via Web sites and other means, says Ecosystem Marketplace. The company will release 2007 data in May.

Fitch Ratings managing director Ellen Lapson thinks Direct Energy is smart to make preliminary moves to get in. That could put the company in good position once carbon dioxide reductions become a requirement in the U.S., as many expect.

"There's no end to the consumption culture; there's just putting a little spin on it," said Ms. Lapson, who analyzes the power and gas sector.

Wild West of offsets

Until the U.S. creates carbon regulations and standards for offsets, the voluntary market is like the Wild West. Some offsets adhere to strict standards set by third parties; others are little more than pricey feel-good certificates for suckers.

"There are problems with offsets in the voluntary market," said Mr. Kreindler. "Potential ineffectiveness, double-counting, buyer beware, all that stuff."

Mr. Tonge said Direct Energy hired accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers to make sure the offsets it sells are real.

But for his own household, Mr. Tonge will wait to buy offsets until he's slimmed down his energy use as much as possible.

Direct Energy executives have another reason for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. As the company begins selling green services, the exercise prevents the prying media from exposing embarrassing hypocrisy.

"The last thing anyone wanted us to have is for you or any other journalist to say: What is your carbon footprint?" Mr. Tonge said. "We become fair game."

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