Can a Petrolhead Ever Be Net Zero?

Short answer: yes, and it costs less than the wax. I work in carbon removal, but I am also a petrolhead. My husband and I own five cars, three of them classic V8s. Can you love V8s but still take climate action seriously? We think yes. Over the years, we have cut the fossil CO₂ emissions from our driving by roughly 80% with fuel conversions, and now we remove the rest with certified, durable carbon removal for less than €15 a month. We treat our unavoidable CO₂ like any other waste and clean it up properly, so we don’t need to give up our hobby.

Why we refuse to choose between cars and climate

My husband and I love cars. Now that our kids are grown, it is our shared hobby: club drives, car meets, fun rallies and events, and colourful dresses that match the cars. But while we enjoy the hobby, we also want to take full responsibility for the emissions. Here is how we do it, with real numbers.

First: we’ve reduced what we can

Over several years, we have converted our cars away from fossil petrol, one by one:

• Buick Special 1956 convertible (V8): converted to run on biogas
• Jeep Wrangler 1997 (I6): converted to E85 (85% bioethanol, 15% petrol)
• Jaguar XJR 1999 (V8): converted to E85
• Morgan Plus 8 1988 (V8): still on petrol, converting to E85 after the summer
• Tesla Model X 2018: the daily driver, charged at home on contracted clean energy

Biogas takes the Buick close to zero fossil CO₂ emissions. And the E85 conversions cut the fossil CO₂ by roughly 80% compared to petrol, when counting the fossil share and the higher fuel consumption. So, we’ve considerably reduced our emissions. But reducing alone never gets you to zero.

Then: we remove the rest, in parallel

Some fossil CO₂ remains: the 15% petrol in every tank of E85, this summer with Morgan on petrol, and the few petrol tanks in a year for the others, for example when we drive wedding couples in our Buick, as old motors prefer petrol at walking pace.

Although we feel good about the conversions, the remaining CO₂ will sit in the atmosphere for centuries unless someone takes it out. So, we treat it like any other household waste: we pay to have it properly handled. At home we recycle our trash, but we still pay for the bin collection, so while we continue to reduce our emissions, we also pay for the removal of the unavoidable CO₂ waste.

We calculated our annual kilometres per car and per fuel, worked out the fossil CO₂ left over, and set up a monthly removal of 70 kg through Remove Carbon Today. Every month, certified carbon removal is retired on our order number in a public registry. It is ex-post, which means the CO₂ is already physically removed from the atmosphere and locked away for centuries, instead of promises for future delivery. After the summer, we will also do a one-time top-up based on the actual kilometres driven with the Morgan, which we enjoy a lot.

What does removing a car hobby's CO₂ actually cost?

This is the part that surprises people the most.

The conversions have reduced the fossil CO₂ emissions of our five-car fleet down to 840 kg a year, which is what an ordinary petrol or diesel car emits in 2,800 km.

Removing this unavoidable CO₂ costs us €13.86 per month. We spend more on wax. If you can afford the hobby, you can afford the clean-up, too.

So, is our hobby "net zero"?

We’d rather avoid that phrase, because it gets used loosely. But what we can say is that we have fully neutralised the global warming impact of our car hobby: we’ve reduced by roughly 80% and removed the rest with certified, durable carbon removal. We can be serious about climate action and still continue our dearest hobbies, if we do it responsibly. This applies to other areas in life, too, like food, travel, energy and shopping – reduce what you can and remove the rest.

How you can do the same

Your petrol and diesel emissions can now be properly cleaned using our Driving Carbon Removal product. All you have to do is to count roughly how many kilometres you drive on fossil fuels. And then use the product to remove 30 kg of CO₂ per 100 km (60 miles), the conservative global average that ensures the full global warming impact of your drives is fully neutralised. You can choose to do a one-time removal or set a weekly or monthly subscription, which you can cancel anytime. 100 km costs €5.95 to clean up.

 

👉 Remove your driving CO₂ here →

 

Full transparency: My fellow-petrolhead husband is the co-founder and vice chairman of Puro.earth, the world’s leading carbon removal crediting platform, majority-owned by Nasdaq and the certifier of the carbon removal we sell. He is my mentor and inspiration but holds no ownership in Remove Carbon Today.