SALLY ROGERS took public transport, bought locally-grown food and looked for sustainable products out of concern for the environment in San Francisco. Then she realized all that was being undone by her need to travel.

Her solution was to subscribe to Project Wren, one of a new breed of climate-centric start-ups offering consumers a way to offset greenhouse-gas pollution. In a nod to the music and video streaming providers Spotify Technology SA and Netflix Inc., they offer a web-based tool to quantify individual carbon emissions and then make regular payments into projects that will absorb those emissions.

“They’ve eliminated that feeling of hopelessness I used to get once I understood my carbon emissions,” said Rogers, founder of a marketing agency that helps join consumer brands with product influencers. “The biggest impact on my carbon footprint was my desire to visit friends and family in other parts of the world.”

The so-called climate-streaming services are capitalizing on the instinct of millennials to be good to the environment and look for solutions on the internet — or their mobile phones.

These companies are jumping into a $200 million-a-year carbon offsetting industry that, until recently, has focused mainly on businesses instead of consumers. Established incumbents include British oil major BP Plc. and ClimateCare, a former unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“There’s lot of consumer demand for affordable action on climate change that isn’t in the form of traditional political activism,” said Ben Stanfield, co-founder of Californian start-up Project Wren. “A lot of people are frustrated with how local and national governments are dealing with the problem.”

His operations help offset pollution by planting trees that absorb carbon dioxide or by installing solar panels or handing out cleaner cook stoves in developing nations. The service applies those savings to the carbon emitted from everyday life including flying or driving.

Offsetting has been used for more than a decade by firms including Citigroup Inc. and UBS Group AG to minimize their environmental impact. JPMorgan offsets all its business air-travel, and the consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP has matched its emissions with forest protection. Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. is among numerous airlines that has introduced carbon programs to fund environmental projects.

Another service called Chooose charges less than $10 a month for a subscription plan that helps direct money into renewable energy projects. The Oslo-based company also provides gift cards and company-branded merchandise too (sustainable and environmentally-friendly of course).

Its founder, Andreas Slettvoll, left a high-flying legal job in the Russian fossil-fuel industry to tackle climate change.

“If I had continued that for my entire life, nobody would have come to my funeral,” Slettvoll said in an interview. “Even if you live in a cave, you still have an unavoidable carbon footprint. We are actively trying to go out of business by solving this problem.”

In California, Stanfield launched Project Wren about two months ago with co-founders Mimi Tran Zambetti and Landon Brand. With a monthly subscription tailored to your carbon footprint, it already has about 500 subscribers.

For those who want to offset on the go, the OffCents mobile app can automatically detect and calculate your carbon emissions whether you’re traveling by car, plane or train. Through their phones, users can then decide how much to spend on carbon credits.

“It’s an app that rewards you for avoiding and offsetting travel,” said Howard Jaslow, who started OffCents after leaving Blackstone Group Inc. about three years ago.

The offset business is still a fraction of the international carbon market, a sector valued about €144 billion ($159 billion), according to financial data provider Refinitiv. — Bloomberg

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