It’s been 6 months since Carbon Catalog was launched, and 3 months since the first blog post. It’s time to talk about some recent updates to the site as well as future directions.

The most popular page on Carbon Catalog is the list of offset providers. This lets you compare and contrast 74 (and growing!) offset providers at a glance. The list includes location, pricing and our own check-based rating. Based on feedback received, two recent improvements have been made:

• When you mouse over the check marks in the ‘Criteria’ column, a pop-up box appears explaining the checks in detail. No more guessing the meaning of each tick!

• Currency conversions now let you compare pricing across different continents. With help from the good folk at the European Central Bank, the rates are updated daily. New links at the bottom of the provider list let you view prices in your chosen currency.

Beyond these minor interface changes, the biggest challenge of running Carbon Catalog is keeping the content updated. Each provider website must be visited regularly to look for new projects, changes in pricing, contact details, etc…

Until now this was a manual process, with provider websites checked on a monthly rotation. From this week, our server will start monitoring the websites daily, and bring recent changes to our attention automatically. Not only will this save time – it also means we’ll pick up new information quicker.

Our blog is picking up steam, including topical news and business updates, some science lessons about carbon, and a series of interviews with non-profit providers. We still have a couple more of these interviews to post, after which we’ll turn our attention to some of their for-profit competitors. As always, we have no vested interests. It’s up to you – our readers – to decide.

For any web project, it’s best to gauge public interest before getting in too deep. So the original layout of Carbon Catalog was thrown together without too much thought. Since the September launch, traffic has been growing steadily at 20-30% per month, mostly via blogs and word of mouth. Now that we know you’re interested, we’ve set to work on a more professional and pleasing design.

Despite all of this, I can’t help wondering: How big can the voluntary carbon market grow? Will the mass market really go for carbon offsetting? What about the economic clouds on the horizon? Will this ever be more than a form of charity which appeals to a particular audience?

This Google Trends graph of consumer search behavior suggests that growth is yet to be seen. However if (as I suspect) most voluntary offsets are bought by corporations, the full picture may be very different. Like many players in the industry, we’re eagerly awaiting the new Voluntary Carbon Markets report to come out of Ecosystem Marketplace, so we can compare it with 2007 (PDF).

I’m constantly thinking about the regulatory carbon market, in which companies must buy offsets to comply with legal emissions caps. The volumes here are much larger than the voluntary market, with the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme leading the charge. Does the regulatory market need the kind of information and ratings offered by Carbon Catalog? If companies are forced to buy offsets, do they care about quality? Won’t they just use the cheapest option that regulators approve?

The biggest surprise of the last 6 months has been the number of providers we’ve heard from. Most have been supportive, many had questions about their ratings, and a handful have been angry and upset. I understand that this level of transparency can be unsettling for some. However I believe it’s vitally important for the market as a whole. I’m glad to say that most providers came around after a few email exchanges and we addressed any valid points raised.

Here’s to the next 6 months!

Gideon