When You Offset Your CO2 with Native, we will purchase or produce and cause to be retired on your behalf; either (depending on your project choice):
- A specific number of metric tonnes of verified emissions reduction (“VERs”) produced by a project in a defined year (“Vintage Purchases“); or
- All of the verified emissions reductions (“VERs”) to be generated by a capacity-based share of the first n VERs to be generated by the project(s) specified in your Purchase Confirmation Letter (“Forward Purchases”), where n is the difference between the third party validated ex ante production quantity over the project’s crediting period minus the number of VERs from the project we reserve for our portfolio performance buffer (as described below).
The project(s) to which we are allocating your purchase, your share of the project(s) VER production for any Forward Purchase, and the vintage year for any Vintage Purchase, are selected by you on our website. For Forward Purchases, we will make this purchase for you once your project(s) achieves commercial operations (it is our contract to do so that the projects are relying on) or we may have done so recently and are continuing to subscribe its total capacity. For Forward Purchases, we estimate that these amounts of generating capacity will generate the applicable volume of VERs you choose to purchase. These estimates are made in accordance with the applicable methodologies approved by the standard to which the projects are validated and verified. For Vintage Purchases, our purchase of your VERs is generally unit-contingent, and our supplier has the right to substitute substantially equivalent VERs in the event of project under-performance. We reserve the right to do so as well.
Validation and Verification. All of our Projects undergo review by independent third parties who are accredited to make the determination that the project meets all the requirements of one of the leading carbon offset standards such as the Gold Standard, the Verified Carbon Standard or the Climate Action Reserve, and receive “validation” that they do. Importantly, this validation tells us the number of VERs we can expect the project to produce as it operates over time (the “Validated Quantity”). As the project operates over time, its VER production will be third party verified as specified in the project description on our web site and according to the rules of the applicable carbon offset standard. As they are verified, the standard issues credits on its project registry representing the VERs, which are then retired on your behalf so no one can claim the reductions but you. The period of time over which a project is issued credits by a standard is known as its “Crediting Period.”
Retirement. We will ensure that the VERs you purchase from us are “retired” on your behalf. This will happen as your VERs are verified and issued as serially numbered credits by the VER project registry under the applicable standard. On our direction, the registry will change the status of those credits to “retired” on the registry, which then precludes any further transfer or use of them. Some registries require title to the serially numbered credits to be transferred to the registry in order for retirement to be complete. If your VERs are to be registered on such a registry, you hereby appoint us as your agent to transfer such credits to the registry for retirement.
Project Implementation. For Forward Purchases, our project is being implemented when and as described in the project description on our web site. Part of actually helping create new emissions reduction or removal projects is committing to them in their early stages of development, when some uncertainties remain. So if the conditions for our purchase of the Project’s VERs are not met, or if the Project is not implemented with Native’s support for any reason, your purchase price will help build an alternate project within one year after the date your Project was to be completed, either from our current portfolio of projects or a project that we add to our portfolio. We have relationships with a number of developers who have suitable projects in the early stages of development and that could really use our customers’ support. You’ll still own all the VERs to be generated by a share of the alternate project(s)’ generating capacity, adjusted for expected generation and expected operating life to produce at least your chosen number of tons of VERs over a term no longer than its Crediting Period, according to the standard under which the project is validated and its emissions reductions verified. If we are unable to accomplish the foregoing, we will acquire VERs from other sources, in an amount equal to your purchase, and will retire them on your behalf.
Project Operations. The Project owner (if not Native) has agreed with us that it will use commercially reasonable efforts to operate the Project for the duration of its Crediting Period. For Native-owned projects, we will do so as well.
Buffer; Portfolio Guarantee. For each of our Forward Purchase projects, we have a third party validate the project’s expected VER production over the term of our purchase, which is typically 10 years. We don’t sell all of that total expected VER production. We reserve a portion in a separate buffer, usually the expected production in the last year or two of our contract. If your project doesn’t produce the amount we sold by the time that buffer period begins, we will retire VERs from your project’s buffer for you. If your project’s buffer isn’t enough to provide all the VERs we sold from your project, we will draw from other projects buffers and retire them for you. We will manage this overall portfolio of project buffers to maintain, or following unforeseen events, to restore (as new projects are added to the portfolio), a 99% probability that more than enough VERs will be available to be retired on your behalf.
Our Emissions Reductions Estimates are Estimates Only. We estimate that your share of the Project’s VER production capacity will prevent the emission of the number of CO2-equivalent tons you have chosen to offset. This estimate will be third party validated by under the Verified Carbon Standard protocols. These protocols require verification to a 5% variance materiality threshold for accuracy, so we cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. In addition, the CO2–equivalent reducing impact of the Project may be subject to changes in law.
Billing. If you choose our monthly, quarterly, or annual payment plan, we will continue to bill your credit card each month, quarter, or year respectively until you cancel. Each payment will purchase the number of tons you chose to offset for the given interval of time. Your first payment will be dedicated to the Project you chose to help build on our web site. Each successive payment will be dedicated to that Project as long as we are selling from it on our web site. Thereafter, each payment will be dedicated to helping build or support an alternate project in our portfolio. You can always learn which project your payments are helping to build or support by sending us an e-mail at [email protected], or calling our toll-free number. If it isn’t a project you want to help build or support, we’ll either switch you to a different project or terminate our billing, whichever you prefer. If you choose our one-time purchase payment option, we will not automatically bill you again after your initial purchase, although we may ask you to renew your purchase at that time.
Cancellation. If you elect our convenient monthly, quarterly, or annual payment option, you may cancel any time for any reason and we will immediately discontinue further charges to your credit card. You may cancel monthly, quarterly, or annual payments using any one of the following methods:
- Log in to your account, choose “My subscriptions,” then follow the instructions to cancel.
- Send us an e-mail to [email protected], or
- Call us at (800) 924-6826
If you elect our one-time purchase payment option or our monthly, quarterly, or annual payment option, you may cancel your participation for any reason within ten days of your initial purchase by sending us an e-mail to [email protected] or calling us at (800) 924-6826. If you cancel your participation within this period, we’ll refund any amounts charged to your credit card. If you do cancel, please tell us why.
Other Legal Provisions. EXCEPT AS SET FORTH EXPRESSLY IN THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, NATIVE MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER IMPLIED OR EXPRESS, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE (this disclaimer may not apply in your state). All our estimates regarding the quantity of emissions reductions represented by your VERs are subject to changes in law. In no event shall either party be liable to the other party for indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages of any kind, including, without limitation, loss of revenues or profits. In no event shall Native be liable for any failure to perform to the extent caused by or resulting from any cause or circumstance beyond its reasonable control and which, by the exercise of due diligence, it could not have reasonably prevented or overcome. All damages shall be limited to actual damages only. The agreement set forth in these terms and conditions shall be governed by, and construed and enforced in accordance with, the laws of the State of Vermont, without regard to its provisions governing conflicts of laws. Any dispute arising under this agreement shall be subject to mandatory arbitration in accordance with the rules of the American Arbitration Association, and the arbitrator’s decision shall be final and binding upon the parties. All information included on the web pages or pop-ups linked to in these terms and conditions is incorporated into these terms and conditions by this reference, with the same effect as though fully set forth herein.
If you have questions about our terms and conditions, please contact us at [email protected] or call (800) 924-6826.