What you pay for when you
buy a CO₂ allowance with Compensators



Every now and then, we get the question how the price you end up paying to withdraw an allowance from the market comes about. And why does it keep changing at times? 

Compensators buys a certain stack of pollution rights at the EU allowance exchange. Because the price has risen significantly since our relaunch in September, you now also pay significantly more to withdraw a ton. Initially, the price was around 25 Euros, but until now it has risen to more than 45 Euros. This development has an ambiguity to it: On the one hand, we aim to drive the price up, on the other hand, being successful means that it will be increasingly difficult for you to scrape together the price for a ton. 

Calculation of the price per ton

But how do we get to the final Compensators price you see on our website? Currently, we offer to retire an allowance for 46.37 Euros each (1 ton of CO₂). We bought these allowances at the beginning of March worth 38.19 Euros each. VAT has to be paid on each certificate, which adds 7.26 Euros to the price. In addition, we pay a relative amount, in this case about 1 Euro, for each donation to our payment service providers Betterplace, stripe and PayPal.

We have not yet found a cheaper way to do it, since our voluntary staff is small and has only a limited amount of time to spend on Compensators. If you would like to help out, please feel free to join our organization.

Compensators does not incur any costs for staff, because all members work for free on a voluntary basis. This allows us to invest your entire donation into the protection of our climate!

46.37 Euros will be the price per ton until you have purchased the stock of allowances we have bought in advance. Before the stock dries out, we buy more allowances. The price always changes a little depending on the current rate at the exchange market. 

Why donations to Compensators are just as important as buying allowances

We cover costs to keep Compensators going using the member fees or donations to Compensators that are not tied to a specific purpose. Many people do not know that these general donations are also really important for our work. Among other things, we use the money to pay our purchases of allowances in advance. The more donations we receive for the organization, the more freedom we have to buy a larger stock of allowances at the exchange. We would also like to pay for campaigning and other activities to raise awareness in the future using these donations.  

So given the case you can spare a few Euros after compensating your footprint, please feel free to check the button “Donate to Compensators” in the donation form. Any amount helps Compensators to reach our common goal even faster: 

We force European industries to reduce their CO₂ emissions! Together we can become an important voice in the fight for a more ambitious climate policy of the European Union. 

Let’s do this! 

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