Should an automobile company be applauded for its contributions to the environment when its core business is fundamental in destroying it? Well, Chevrolet is trying its luck.

The company just completed a five-year carbon reduction initiative . It spent $40 million buying carbon offsets from over 30 different projects across America. When a company buys a carbon offset, it usually pays another company to reduce emissions, in order to "offset" emissions elsewhere. Chevy bought offsets that reduced the amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere by 8 million metric tons.

"That's like planting a forest the size of Yellowstone," according to the initiative's website. It's also equivalent to about 3 percent of the annual carbon pollution from cars that Chevrolet's parent company, GM, sells in a single year.

Though the magnitude is small compared to the damage that cars do across the U.S., the 8 million metric tons of offsets that Chevy bought over the last five years made up a huge chunk of the voluntary carbon market.

The company also won an award from the Environmental Protection Agency in early 2015 for the Campus Clean Energy Campaign it created as part of Chevy's offsetting initiative. The campaign helped universities set up the right protocols to be able to sell their own carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market. Chevy then bought credits from the universities.