Trees are absolutely essential to countering the effects of global warming, and our forests are, quite literally, the lungs of the Earth.
To avoid a 1.5°C global temperature rise we must remove a staggering 730 billion tonnesof carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the end of this century – a figure that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), will require an additional one billion hectares worth of additional tree cover.
It’s no surprise then, that most of us directly associate planting trees with doing good. With just 2% of the UK remaining as ancient woodland, and deforestation accounting for 10% of global carbon emissions, it’s natural to presume that the more trees we plant, the better. And with many heralding tree planting as the one-size-fits-all answer to the climate crisis, companies and governments too have jumped on the bandwagon. Their pledges look good… but are they?
Part of the attraction of planting trees for companies is that they get some of the best advertising there is. Brands such as Pornhub, which pledged to plant a tree for every 100 videos watched, in turn benefitted from vast amounts of advertising and hype – a marketing team’s dream. Yet all the while it encourages customers that their over-consuming is actually doing something good for the environment, which has all the hallmarks of greenwashing.
In reality, tree planting initiatives might not be quite as good as they first appear. The location, species and management of the tree planting all come into play. One on hand, when researched and executed in the right way as a fundamental part of a company’s corporate social responsibility work, these schemes can fund fantastic organisations such as Trees For Life, which plants and maintains natural forests in Scotland. This offers enormous environmental potential and under good management, protection and careful species selection can provide a wealth of rewards for both nature and humans.