SAN FRANCISCO -

In honor of Earth Day, car-sharing marketplace Turo said Thursday it has become the first car-sharing or car rental marketplace to offset 100% of its estimated global carbon emissions.

This commitment will offset emissions based on the total number of miles driven on Turo trips, and all emissions from its global office footprint.

The company said it is taking what it describes as an urgent next step in the fight against climate change. Turo said it seeks to help make the car-sharing industry more sustainable.

Turo is making the effort to reduce its carbon footprint at a time when the platform’s hosts are already adding many more electric vehicles.

To become carbon neutral, Turo will invest in emission-reduction projects such as a transportation efficiency project and two sustainable forestry projects, one in British Columbia and another in Alaska.

Turo said it is directly funding these projects to support the choices of the project owners to go further than what is required of them. Turo chose third-party-verified projects through its partner, Bluesource, a carbon offset developer. The projects Turo chose to support are located in U.S. and Canadian markets.

“Building on the organic growth of electric vehicles shared on Turo and our core mission of putting the world’s existing resources to better use, making the Turo marketplace carbon neutral is an important step towards making travel more sustainable, especially as the world emerges from the pandemic and car travel is widely considered the safest form of travel,” Turo chief executive officer Andre Haddad said in a news release.

Haddad also said, “We’re proud to double down on our commitment to promote a greener future, and to continue championing EV and hybrid adoption.”

“Bluesource is very excited to partner with the Turo team as they continue their industry-leading climate commitments and embark on this offsetting program,” said Bluesource vice president Ben Massie.