Climate-neutral living - I plant trees
At the moment I'm thinking a lot about my Goals for the coming year to. One major goal that I would like to get a lot closer to is living in a climate-neutral way. This is important to me because I feel responsible for our world.
I want to help ensure that our earth is not further destroyed, but is preserved and can even regenerate.
Climate-neutral living in everyday life
Living in a climate-neutral way starts in everyday life. Using less energy through reduced consumption, less climate-damaging air travel and lower energy consumption. I'm giving a lot of thought to this, but the concrete strategy has not yet been finalised.
Living climate neutrally - not so easy
With the CO2 calculator of the Federal Environment Agency I have found out: I am responsible for the emission of around 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide - CO2 - per year. I emit about 12 tonnes of CO2 per year - that's pretty much the German average.
I live frugally, my boat has a compost toilet, a solar system and heats with pellets. I grow some of my own food. In terms of consumption and lifestyle, I am therefore well below the German average. However, this is unfortunately made up for by the many professional and some private trips.
Even if I don't move into a hut in the forest, never travel again and only live from home-grown fruit and weave my own clothes from flax, I probably won't manage to live in a climate-neutral way.
That's why I choose a different path.
Climate-neutral living - by planting trees
Trees take CO2 out of the air and store it back into the soil. Planting trees is therefore probably the best way to offset CO2 consumption. Depending on the variety and age, a tree stores around 10 kilos of CO2 per year - an old tree more than a young one.
That's why I've decided to plant at least one tree every month
- I plant trees on fallow land - around where I live. I've already planted a few fruit trees here and I'm going to plant a few more useful trees, as well as lupins, which fertilise the soil well. This will give me fruit and also save some CO2. A tree costs around 20 - 30 euros.
- I invest in forestry in the tropics. Trees grow faster in the tropics than in Europe and therefore bind more CO2. I am already investing in ecological forestry as part of my retirement provision at Forest Finance, which creates mixed forests. When the trees are fully grown, they are sold - I get a return of around 6% per year on the money invested.
Here I particularly like the mixture of agroforestry - Tree plus cocoa - This makes sense because a lot of tropical forest is still being cut down worldwide to plant coveted cocoa - a catastrophe. Mixing trees and cocoa bushes makes sense.
I think it makes a lot of sense to invest in your own future and in the future of the world at the same time. I am Partner the comprehensively certified and multiple award-winning forest investment company Forest Finance - If you are interested, I can put you in touch with a competent consultant.
Working climate neutrally - by investing in others
My work also emits CO2. We print all titles climate-neutrally with non-toxic colours on paper from sustainable forestry. But CO2 is still emitted through storage and despatch. I would like to offset that.
We also regularly donate to two tree projects:
- Fruit trees for families in Afghanistan, that provide nutrition and bind CO2. A tree including training costs around 1 euro.
- Regenerative reforestation FMNR (farmer managed natural regeneration). The method for which the developer Tony Rinaudo awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize is based on the fact that existing roots of trees that have been cut down sprout again and grow quickly - if they are well pruned and protected from cattle.
FMNR is inexpensive - no seedlings need to be grown and it works extremely quickly because the new trees regenerate from the roots of the old trees. One advantage is that the trees, which are native to the region and adapted to the climate, come back.
The only costs are the training costs for the local farmers. A training course costs around 40 euros. We support this with a monthly donation to World Vision, project number 405290. 100 trees are conservatively estimated from one training course. Probably far more.
Climate-neutral living - and you?
I would be interested to hear from you about how you feel about living in a climate-neutral way. Is it something that moves you and for which you feel responsible?.
If yes
- What does that look like in practice for you
- Which of my ideas do you particularly like? You can find more ideas in my impulse booklet Environmentally friendly. Impulses to preserve our world.
- What do you want to do?
