Volkswagen of America is excited to announce a partnership with Carbonfund.org that will help the entire community of VW owners to start tackling the issue of carbon emissions. If you own a VW, and want to initiate change to offset your vehicle's carbon emissions, you can visit Carbonfund.org to use simple tools to gauge your output and take action towards offsetting it. And VW will be right behind you. In fact, to kick-start the project, Volkswagen will offset one year of carbon emissions for every new Volkswagen purchased from September 1, 2007 through January 2, 2008.

The contributions of the full Volkswagen community will be put toward re-forestation of the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley as the chosen means of carbon reforestation, in a 1,100-acre plot of land. It's simple: VW and VW owners take action, trees are planted and we begin to offset our carbon. Side benefit: a lot of local creatures, like Louisiana Black bears, fish, raptors, shore birds, wading birds and ducks are a little happier, as are the water, and the soil. And once the area is reforested, it will stay reforested.

The Carbon Neutral Project is the first time a group of car owners and a car company have had the potential to mobilize on this scale to help offset carbon emissions. And this project is just the start. VW TDI® Clean Diesel models arrive in the U.S. next year, and will go a long way toward redefining the performance that people can expect from their vehicles. As always, Volkswagen will continue to explore fuel, engine and manufacturing solutions that help to reduce adverse environmental impacts.