It’s all the rage in Europe.

All the coolest people are doing it.

Even Rupert Murdoch is giving it a try.

Carbon neutral — chosen as The New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2006 — is the new carbon indifferent, and we at egg are thrilled to witness this cultural shift. We’ve been taking measures to reduce our carbon footprint for a few years now, but last week we called in an expert to help us get to the next level. Our goals: full carbon neutrality for our agency, and carbon-neutral print advertisement and website development options for our clients. Kevin Wilhelm, of Innovative Strategies, a sustainability consulting firm, paid a visit to our offices and walked our entire staff through the basics of the carbon footprint calculation process. We discussed transportation, energy, materials, waste, and the crucial issue of reducing our footprint rather than just buying offsets. We talked about shady offset shops, the efficacy of planting trees, and the fact that you could negate the impact of an entire year of carbon-righteous living with a single long-haul airplane trip. We also got into the interesting (and loaded) issue of personal choice vs. the common good — we touched upon the idea of financial incentives for collectively reducing the agency’s carbon footprint. It’s a tricky balance, wanting to do good in the world, but knowing that our industry — any industry — has an environmental impact that may be less than beneficial. We can but do our best.

Our next step is to fill out comprehensive personal surveys and subject every part of egg’s operation to rigorous scrutiny. Innovative Strategies will crunch the numbers for us, and we’ll be able to stare down at our footprints and see exactly where we are.

Will our water cooler be revealed as an energy sink? Will our lunch habits be called into question?

Will the bicyclists at egg begin to taunt the bus-takers with looks of smug superiority?

Stay tuned for the next installment of “Running the Talk,” and all will be revealed.