Introducing CHO.C.O. (Choose, Cut, Offset) farms in the Christmas tree market: a first year implementation results

ABSTRACT

In this paper, the enhancement of Choose & Cut supply method of Christmas trees with the Offset dimension is proposed, introducing CHO.C.O. farms (Choose, Cut, Offset). The offset component refers to the need to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation of agricultural and forest products. It is proposed that the producers offset the emissions created by cars driving to the farm, internalising this external environmental cost. The rational for this is that the latter will be interested in purchasing an integrated carbon neutral product. To test if the supply and demand side are interested, questionnaires were used before and after a first year pilot implementation of CHO.C.O. farms in Greece. The encouraging preliminary results are briefly discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Choose & Cut
• carbon offsets
• questionnaires
• Contingent Activity Method
• ordinal logistic regression
• Christmas trees

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. www.carbonfund.org.

Additional information

Funding

This research project was funded under the Action “Research & Technology Development Innovation projects (AgroETAK)”, MIS 453350, in the framework of the Operational Program “Human Resources Development”. It was co-funded by the European Social Fund and by National Resources through the National Strategic Reference Framework 2007–2013 (NSRF 2007–2013) coordinated by the Hellenic Agricultural Organisation “DEMETER” (Forest Research Institute of Thessaloniki / Scientific supervisor: Dr Nikolaos Grigoriadis).