Ausante Review

 Ausante has an interesting product...they sell carbon credits. Read on for my Ausante Review.

Ausante is based in Wilmington, Delaware. They sell carbon credits, which are standardized international units of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by activities like planting trees. The Ausante website says it has partnered with the Zambian government in a reforestation and environmental stewardship project, which apparently is where all those trees meant to offset its customers' carbon footprints are going to be planted.

Ausante's "packs" of carbon credits start at $320 for an individual to be "carbon neutral" for one year. In my opinion, that is a pretty steep price for something that is intangible. Not to mention that there is no way for a customer to know whether any trees were actually planted with the money from their purchase.

To become an Ausante Consultant, you need to either sell 20 Ausante Carbon Credits in 1 calendar month or purchase a package for your own carbon offsetting requirements. The company has a hybrid comp plan, and consultants earn retail commissions, rewards on their personal referrals, matching bonuses, and "Global Income" on the sales of consultants in their down line.

This is either the newest wave of "green" products, or it could be that Ausante is a scam. They basically are relying on people to a) feel guilty enough about their carbon footprint to purchase something that they will never see; and b) have enough discretionary income to spend hundreds of dollars on something they cannot consume or use, which in this economy is  expecting quite a bit. I do not personally know anyone who has an extra $320 that they could spend on becoming carbon neutral. Also, Mark Chadwick, the CEO of Ausante, does not have any prior experience running a company, according to his official biography, and has been on several boards but doesn't say for which companies. Vagueness is usually not a good sign.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Ausante. Some will argue that it must be a scam or pyramid scheme, because they are not selling an "actual" product. Actually, they are selling a product...just not one you can hold in your hand.  I would be willing to bet that they only sales that will occur are the ones made to new consultants who think they are onto the new big thing and so on. Then it becomes a matter of the "product" only existing as a means to recruit new consultants, not something that the general public is interested in or able to purchase.

The whole idea of Ausante's "carbon credits" seem pretty outrageous to me. Even if I had tons of money to spend, I definitely wouldn't pay $320 just to feel better about myself and have no physical product from that money. Maybe I don't feel "guilty" enough. On the same note, how do we know if Ausante is even doing anything with our money? There is no way for me to find out whether or not trees were planted with that $320 that I spent. If I wanted to spend $320 to plant trees and actually feel better about helping the environment, I would go buy $320 worth of trees and plant them myself in a place that needed them, not give Ausante my money to do something that I might not ever know is real.