Environment & Technology
Planting Trees to be Carbon-Neutral
Climate change is on the brink of no-return. Being environmentally friendly is the ‘in’ thing for corporations in 2020. But how can we personally aim to be carbon-neutral?
Google achieved carbon-neutral status in 2007, but they only chose to flaunt it in 2020. Apple and Microsoft have also recently pledged to be carbon-neutral in the next decade. Starbucks, unfortunately, have replaced their plastic straws with plastic sippy lids; and yet people are still using straws with those sippy cups — double the plastic…
The environment is at its predicted worst-case scenario — as I discussed in my previous post. We are at war against ourselves and there is a ticking time bomb. The problem is that about 30% of people still don’t believe that climate change is a threat to us.
I could go on forever about the problems surrounding climate change and our unwillingness to take action against it. But today, I’m focusing on the actions we should take to be carbon-neutral.
Calculating your carbon footprint
Your carbon footprint is the amount of carbon you are personally responsible for releasing into the atmosphere. Your personal carbon emissions can be very hard to estimate. It depends on factors like your personal transport, your dietary choice, shopping habits and even your energy and phone suppliers.
Finding out your own emissions is step one in being more environmentally friendly.
The global average is 4.7 tonnes per person and it varies greatly between countries. I’ve included a small table of average CO2 emissions per person, by country, for some context.
I personally recommend WWF’s Footprint Calculators as a starting point — the calculator only applies to 10 countries. WWF has a questionnaire to find out your lifestyle and habits. They base their estimates around four main categories:
- Food
- Travel
- Home
- Miscellaneous
WWF’s calculator provides you with your yearly carbon emissions, while also showing you the world and national average. This is a great start in gearing yourself up with a new perspective and educating yourself.
Is tree-planting that effective?
Trees play a crucial role in climate control. They have the ability to synthesise carbon into oxygen, which is doubly effective to fight climate change. Trees essentially make use of carbon to grow; Oxygen is actually released as a by-product of this process.
Deforestation is one of the biggest causes of global warming. Killing a tree doesn’t just remove the ability to produce more oxygen. All the carbon stored in the tree is released back into the atmosphere, which is often overlooked.
Planting trees is one of the easiest solutions to climate change and it definitely is something you can personally take part in. I’ll name two methods you can do right now:
- Donating to #TEAMTREES, planting a tree for each dollar donated.
- Planting a tree everyday for free with TreeApp — they’ve just implemented a donation system too where each £1 will plant a tree.
The next question you probably have is, “Exactly how many trees does it take for me to be carbon-neutral?”
Let’s do some maths
I want to preface this section by saying calculations regarding the environment aren’t always entirely accurate. This is my attempt to simplify things and provide the relevant information.
Your carbon emissions
In the United Kingdom, a person produces roughly 5–7 tonnes of CO2 every year, depending on sources. Making use of the WWF Calculator will give you your exact numbers. But if your country isn’t in the calculator, Wikipedia has a list of countries and their estimated CO2 emissions per person.
How much CO2 do trees absorb?
This is where things get messy. There are so many variables with trees; different species absorb different amounts of CO2, have a vast range of lifespans and periods of maturity. Trees in the tropics and temperate regions even absorb CO2 at differing rates.
To put some numbers to this, trees can absorb from 6 to 32 kilograms of CO2 every year. This depends on the species, maturity and location of the tree. Trees also have a lifespan of 50 to 100 years.
I’ve assumed that a tree will release on average 15 kilograms of CO2 per year across its entire lifetime.
So, how many trees?
The average British person needs to plant and maintain 330 trees to be carbon-neutral. There is a silver lining behind this big number though.
If you were to plant a tree for every single day in 2021, you’d be carbon-neutral by November. But more importantly, every tree you plant in December would make you carbon-negative.
Meaning you’d be producing more oxygen than you use, and removing more carbon than you emit.
I’ve been making use of TreeApp since June 2020 and I’ve missed a day here and there but I’ve still planted over 150 trees in the last 5 months.
It takes minimal effort daily to make such a large impact on the environment. That’s been my takeaway from using TreeApp. Plus it also makes me feel better about myself and advertises other green businesses I can support!
Thanks for reading!
I really appreciate you taking the time to read my article and hope you’ve taken action today against climate change!
