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New Shopping Site Helps Consumers Fight Global Warming

ClimateCooler.com from Cooler Lets Consumers Eliminate the Global Warming Impact of Their Online Purchases at No Additional Cost

Oakland, Calif., Oct. 9, 2007 Cooler, a leading provider of commerce solutions that address global warming, today announced the launch of ClimateCooler.com, a Web site that helps consumers eliminate the global warming impact of their online purchases at over 400 of the Internet’s most popular stores. When a consumer starts their online shopping at ClimateCooler.com and completes the purchase at a participating store, the global warming impact of each purchase is calculated and a portion of the purchase price is returned by stores to Cooler to offset that impact.  

Consumers who shop through ClimateCooler.com pay the same prices they would going directly to the retailer. The company uses a product-level carbon calculator that is the first global warming solution to address the impact of almost any consumer good or service sold in the U.S.  Fees paid back to Cooler by the stores on its site are invested in renewable energy and pollution prevention projects approved by some of the world’s best known environmental organizations. 

“Shopping accounts for almost 40 percent of our global warming impact and, until today, there was no simple, free way to make a difference,” says Michel Gelobter, the founder and executive vice president of Cooler, who has over 25 years of environmental experience. “At ClimateCooler.com consumers can reduce the impact of millions of goods and services at no additional cost. Global warming is on the rise and it is more important than ever for consumers not to buy more, but to buy smarter by starting at ClimateCooler.com.”

To ensure that the calculations are accurate and that the spending reduces global warming, ClimateCooler.com and the company's portfolio of high-quality offsets have been approved by leading environmental groups, including Environmental Defense, the National Wildlife Federation, The Gold Standard, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

"The NRDC is one of the leading environmental organizations putting forward solutions to global warming,” says Frances Beinecke, president of the NRDC. “We’re excited about working with Cooler to give consumers a new way to make a real difference in the fight against global warming in their everyday lives.”

ClimateCooler.com features over 8 million products from more than 400 of the Internet's most popular stores, including iPods and iPhones at Apple.com, organic lifestyle products from Gaiam.com, and the latest bestsellers at Barnes & Noble.com.

The difference ClimateCooler.com can make is illustrated in the purchase of a cell phone.  The primary global warming pollutant is carbon dioxide, or CO2, and the total global warming impact (or carbon footprint) of purchasing a cell phone at a traditional brick-and-mortar store is almost 390 pounds of CO2.  The footprint of same device purchased online is approximately 370 pounds of CO2 or 20 pounds less because online purchases are often more efficient than driving to a store. Shopping through ClimateCooler.com, the cell phone’s carbon footprint is zero because more than 390 pounds of global warming pollution are removed from the environment through Cooler’s offset programs.

"I’m not big shopper, but when I do it online, I now start at ClimateCooler.com. I can go to all the same stores I have in the past, pay the same price and get the store to set aside a portion of the price to offset the greenhouse gases that go into producing and transporting the product. It's the right thing to do,

In addition to launching ClimateCooler.com, Cooler also announced today the launch of its business solution for manufacturers and retailers that want to directly serve climate-conscious consumers.