Esurance Helps Unite Concerts, Cows, and Cars

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18  /PRNewswire/ -- Esurance, the direct-to-consumer personal car insurance company, carried out its commitment to Live Earth attendees in the U.S. who signed up for carbon credits to offset the miles driven to attend the concert in New Jersey.

In partnership with NativeEnergy, a privately held Native American energy company that helps build Native American, farmer-owned, community-based renewable energy projects, Esurance purchased renewable energy credits (REC) to offset 1.6 million pounds of CO2 that were generated by those that drove or flew to the concert. The purchase of those REC's helped fund the startup of the farm methane digester generator project at the Penn England family farm in Williamsburg, PA.

Kristin Brewe, Director of Brand and Public Relations at Esurance, stated, "As a company committed to safeguarding the environment, we hope to reduce carbon footprints when we can and offset what we cannot reduce. Although we encouraged Live Earth concert-goers to use public transportation, we were glad to provide a tangible offset in the form of the Penn England family farms project for those who needed to travel by car." With the construction of the methane digester generator, the 700 cow family dairy farm will halt the use of fossil fuels and power a 160kW generator of renewable energy.

"Renewable energy projects that provide social and economic benefits for the community have been the goal of NativeEnergy since our inception in 2000," said Tom Boucher, President & CEO of NativeEnergy. "The support of companies like Esurance, who understand the importance of these goals, has been vital in our fight to stop global warming."

Brewe concluded, "At Esurance, we are  proud to work with organizations like NativeEnergy as they work towards limiting climate change and sustaining the family-farm and Native American communities. It goes to show that whether it's concerts, cow farms, or car insurance companies, we all have a part to play in reducing CO2 emissions."

About Esurance(R)

Esurance, a subsidiary of White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd. , provides personal car insurance direct to consumers online and through select online agents. Because of Esurance's virtually paperless online customer experience, Esurance policyholders have saved thousands of trees since the company's inception. At the end of 2007, Esurance has planted and maintained over 25,000 trees through its support of urban reforestation programs.

Esurance is committed to safeguarding the environment, through its own operational practices, including a hybrid claims fleet and carbon offset programs for its office locations. Esurance also supports a variety of environmental organizations across the U.S. Esurance was an official U.S. sponsor of Live Earth, and is an ongoing partner of the SOS Campaign. For more information about Esurance's environmental initiatives, visit: http://www.esurance.com/sos/

About Live Earth

Live Earth is a monumental music event that brought together more than 2 billion people on July 7, 2007 to combat the climate crisis. Live Earth staged concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Hamburg and Istanbul, and featured a mix of both legendary music acts like The Police, Genesis, Bon Jovi and Madonna with the latest headliners like Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas and Jack Johnson.

Live Earth's 24 hours of music across 7 continents delivered a worldwide call to action and the solutions necessary to answer that call. Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve the climate crisis. Live Earth is partnering with the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group, Stop Climate Chaos and other international organizations in this ongoing effort. Live Earth was founded by Kevin Wall, a worldwide executive producer of the Live 8 concert series in 2005, and is supported by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

Live Earth reaches a worldwide audience through an unprecedented global media architecture covering all media platforms -- TV, radio, web and wireless channels. For more information about transportation alternatives for getting to the U.S. concert, visit http://www.liveearth.org/

About NativeEnergy

American Indian majority-owned, NativeEnergy is a national marketer of renewable energy credits and carbon offsets. By providing individuals and organizations both the means to compensate for their global warming pollution and also effectively power their homes and businesses with renewable energy, NativeEnergy helps build community based renewable energy projects that create social, economic and environmental benefits. Bringing upfront payment to renewable projects, NativeEnergy enables its customers to help finance the construction of new wind farms and other renewable energy projects, such as tribal wind projects and methane digesters on family dairy farms, which directly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

NativeEnergy is the choice of leading environmentally and socially responsible organizations, including Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (http://www.climatecrisis.net/), Ben & Jerry's, Clif Bar, Stonyfield Farm, Interface, Aveda, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, Co-op America, NRDC, the Clinton Global Initiative, Bonnaroo, and thousands of individuals. Online at: http://www.nativeenergy.com/

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