CERF 2025 Carbon Offset

Visit Richmond VA, in partnership with the Virginia Green Travel Alliance, has successfully offset the estimated carbon footprint of hosting the 2025 Coastal Estuarine Research Federation Biennial Conference in Richmond!

This marks the largest offset since the program’s inception in 2019: a total of 791 metric tons of carbon offsets were purchased on September 24, 2025, to negate the greenhouse gases produced by holding CERF 2025.

The offsets were purchased from Terrapass, a registered broker of Green-e Certified projects supporting renewable energy initiatives such as wind, solar, biomass, and methane capture. Green-e is a third-party standard recognized by the U.S. EPA.

To calculate the event’s impact, the Terrapass Carbon Calculator for Events was used based on the following event details:

• 1,500 attendees

• 2,739 room nights

• 2,000 flights

• 500 cars averaging 200 miles round-trip

• 4,500 meals (5% vegetarian, 0 bottled water)

• 111,000 sq. ft. of meeting space

This resulted in an estimated carbon footprint of 1.743 million lbs of CO₂e, broken down as follows:

• Travel – 1,655,671 lbs CO₂e

• Commute – 48,502 lbs CO₂e

• Venue – 15,432 lbs CO₂e

• Meals – 24,250 lbs CO₂e

• Water – 0 lbs CO₂e

In total, the offset achieved by CERF 2025 is equivalent to the environmental benefit of planting 20,282 urban trees.