Climate Change Chocolate Reduces Carbon Footprint, Guilt

This dark chocolate goes well with aged port.

We’ve praised the health benefits of chocolate and featured confectioners who use socially responsible practices. Now there’s another reason to indulge your sweet tooth guilt-free: New Zealand chocolatier Bloomsberry & Co. recently joined forces with TerraPass, a U.S. company that sells and markets carbon credits, to create Climate Change Chocolate. We went looking for the bars at our local Whole Foods (this was research, mind you) and found they came in milk and dark chocolate. Of course, we had to try both!

The outside wrapper of each 3.5-ounce bar is made of recycled paper printed with 15 tips for reducing your carbon footprint, such as accelerating gently to save gas. Each bar also contains an offset for 133 pounds of carbon emissions, the byproduct of energy used by the average American in one day. Since their debut in October, the bars’ sales have offset more than 11,200 barrels of oil, or the equivalent of 25 railcars worth of coal. As for the product itself? The milk-chocolate bar has a creamy sweetness without being too cloying (we love it with a dab of salted peanut butter), while the dark has a voluptuous richness (pair it with a glass of aged port for a special treat). The bars retail for $4.95 — a relative bargain for something that lets us indulge while doing a good deed.

Have you discovered other tasty ways to go green? Do tell!

Tags: Bloomsberry & Co., Business Partnership, Candy bars, Chocolate, confectionery, energy, Environment, Food and drink, Food industry, Hospitality/Recreation, New Zealand, oil, TerraPass Inc, Types of chocolate, United States, USD