WAYN helps backpackers offset carbon footprint

LONDON - WAYN.com, the travel social networking site, is setting up a system to allow its members to calculate the size of their carbon footprint and to help them offset it before they fly.

Members are being offered the chance to help fund the replanting of 1bn native broad-leaved trees in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, which is recognised by the United Nations Environment Programme's Plant for the Planet programme.

will also donate another 5% of all member offsetting to a WAYN fund which will sponsor specific regeneration projects.

The social networking site formed a partnership with to launch the initiative, which will be available from the end of this year.

Jerome Touze, chief executive and co-founder of WAYN, said: "Being responsible for such a large community, we feel we should be at the forefront of ensuring we make it easy for members to make their contributions simply and at a point where they are engaged with the trip planning process."

WAYN members in the UK add roughly 195,000 trips per year to their top 10 favourite destinations, which equates to around 265,000 tonnes of Co2 from flights alone. WAYN claims that if just 1% of these members were to offset for these more common routes, it could add just under 2,000 trees to a Kenyan rainforest.

WAYN.com, which stands for Where Are You Now, has 10m members from 200 countries.