Our Energy: It's like TerraPass for your online shopping
One of the co-founders of OurEnergy wrote in recently to let us know about his site, which sort of operates like a TerraPass for online shopping. But not exactly. Like TerraPass, where you pay to offset the CO2 you put into the air when you drive by funding clean energy, OurEnergy uses partnerships with online sellers to fund wind energy purchases. Unlike TerraPass, OurEnergy is free to the user and doesn't take the car you drive into account. In fact, it's not really about cars at all, but we at AutoblogGreen realize that being green is a lifestyle, so we're mentioning Our Energy. The program works by using a percentage (which varies by retailer) of your sale to buy wind energy.As John wrote to us, "OurEnergy.us is a free program and fits into the average Americans daily life if they own a car or not. OurEnergy.us goal is to empower American consumers to enjoy the 21st century lifestyle while transforming the way we produce energy at no cost, period."
I haven't signed up for the program, but if you buy things online and like the idea of wind power, it seems like a no-brainer. Anyone out there have any experience using the site?
[Source: Our Energy/John Zyskowski]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 1:39PM (6/30/2006)
I like that they are giving a percentage of consumer purchases to companies that purchase Renewable Energy Certificates, but there are a few things that I don't like.
They use terms such as "participating merchants" and "merchant contributions" which give the illusion that merchants signed up with them in order to donate money to their cause. In fact, Our Energy has apparently signed up with Incentive Networks ( http://www.incentivenetworks.com ) and is using their rebranded software and affiliates. In all likelihood the vast majority of Our Energy's "partners" probably don't even know they exist. A few other companies doing similar things are http://www.shopforthelibrary.net and http://www.escrip.com .
Our Energy states, "OurEnergy retains 15% of the listed merchant contribution as an administrative fee." What they don't tell you is that the listed merchant contribution is only a percentage of what the merchant is paying as its affiliate commission (which is what the "contribution" actually is). Anyone can sign up for any and all of these affiliate marketing programs which are centralized through affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Linkshare, and Performics. As an example, Buy.com is a member of Commission Junction. Anyone can sign up with Commission Junction and became an affiliate with Buy.com. Buy.com pays 3%, 5%, or 10% commissions depending on what is bought. Our Energy lists the percenage as 2%. Our Energy uses 1.85% for REC's and takes .15%, but where does the rest of the commission go? I guess to Incentive Networks? That doesn't sound like a very good deal to me, but I guess it's better than nothing. I'd rather see a company give up to 80%+ of the commissions to renewable energy rather than to overhead, though.
On top of all this, when you download and install the Clean Energy Tracker application, it collects "information about your Web surfing and computer usage". This information can be shared with, "search partners", "third party merchant and advertising partners", "research partners", and "licensors and others". This pretty much means that they can share your information with just about anyone they want to.
As far as I can tell, there are only 4 energy companies to choose from when determining where you want your money to go to. Green Power Switch, PaloAltoGreen, Santee Cooper Green Power, and SMUD Green Power.
They aren't using a green web hosting service.
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