Tailwinds Fund
Among cyclists, it’s nice to nod and wish one another tailwinds. It’s a hope for smooth sailing out on rough roads. We established the Tailwinds Fund to share that spirit and make a lasting positive impact.
Looking for a way to offset your travel or other carbon impacts?
Well, we hate to be the bearers of bad news, but with industry giants manipulating a well-intentioned system for “zeroing out” emissions that ideally wouldn’t have burned in the first place, carbon offsets have become an unreliable solution to this enormous issue.
In struggling to find the impossible one-to-one solution for “offsetting” the emissions generated from putting on our events (food, flights, support vehicles, etc.), we’ve found that our greatest net-positive impact lies in what we can do to support local efforts in our communities — efforts that might not move forward without our funding assistance.
If you’re looking for a way to “offset” your participation in one of our Climate Ride adventures (aside from the funds you’re raising for other amazing climate-positive organizations), we encourage you to contribute to our Tailwinds Fund.
BRING ON THE SUN: LINKING AFFORDABLE HOUSING + SOLAR
For our first Tailwinds Fund project, we’ve partnered with Climate Smart Missoula (a Climate Ride Beneficiary organization) to fund solar panels for an affordable housing project that supports low-income homeowners in Montana (a significant coal state). This building project is slated to move forward without solar panels, so we’re thrilled that we can step in to help Climate Smart Missoula ramp up the positive community impact by empowering this amazing program — to create even greater lasting impacts in our community.
We know there’s a carbon impact created by running our events. We aim to create a measurable community impact that we think outweighs the emissions contributed by being on a Climate Ride.
Tailwinds Fund
We’ve partnered with Climate Smart Missoula to implement carbon mitigation projects that wouldn’t exist without our support. For this project, we estimate that a $25 contribution mitigates 1 metric ton of carbon. However, if you’d like to mitigate a more specific amount of carbon, please use your preferred online carbon calculator.
A FINAL NOTE
For most of our participants, travel to and from Climate Ride events does not necessarily result in a net addition of greenhouse gases to the planet. People often choose Climate Ride events in place of personal travel, and through Climate Ride, they are raising funds for NGOs fighting for climate action, resilience, and active transportation. Once on the ride, they rely less on carbon-burning transportation by choosing zero-carbon bicycle travel instead of driving.
We’re all about protecting the planet for future adventurers and the amazing places we explore. With your help, we can tackle the climate emergency.
