Aussie Porsche owners can now offset their emissions

Australian Porsche owners can now make their carbon footprint a bit smaller thanks to the automotive equivalent of ticking the ‘carbon offset’ box when booking a flight.

In what we understand is the first program of its kind in Australia, Porsche Impact – launched Down Under this week – allows customers of the German car-maker to determine and offset their Porsche’s CO2 emissions via an online calculator and a financial donation to local environmental sustainability projects.

At this stage this includes the Myamyn project, which is rehabilitating the Annya state forest in south-west Victoria, and Mount Sandy – a 200-hectare land conversation project between the Coorong National Park and Lake Albert regions of South Australia, where a Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid is pictured here.

The financial amount donated is calculated on the vehicle’s annual mileage and fuel consumption figure. For example, a sports car that travels 15,000km a year at 12.0L/100km results in an annual figure of $117.

That might not sound like much, but the greater the vehicle’s fuel consumption and the further it travels the higher the dollar value, allowing socially conscious Porsche owners to feel a little better about their purchase.

Being more environmentally responsible won’t be just left to Porsche owners, however. Porsche Cars Australia says that as part of the Impact program it will fund one of the two projects based on the 2020 CO2 emissions of its vehicle fleet, which includes company cars, press cars and driver training cars.

The Porsche Impact program follows other sustainability initiatives from Porsche Cars Australia, including a $250,000 donation to bushfire recovery, a commitment to the Tyre Stewardship Australia recycling program for its vehicle fleet and its dealers, and 100 square-metres of solar panels for its Melbourne HQ.

PCA managing director Sam Curtis said Porsche Impact is the latest measure in a wholistic approach to sustainability, which already includes plug-in hybrid versions of the Porsche Cayenne and Panamera, which will be joined by all-electric vehicles from December with the new Porsche Taycan.

“Sustainability is an essential pillar of our corporate strategy at Porsche,” said Curtis. “The global approach to sustainability at Porsche is holistic, working in all fields of action: ecological, economic and social.”