How Many Trees Should You Plant To Offset Your Carbon Footprint?

What is carbon footprint?

According to the Ministry of Environment, the carbon footprint is defined as « The set of greenhouse gas emissions produced directly or indirectly by people, organizations, products, events or geographic regions, in terms of CO2 equivalents, and serves us as a useful management tool to know the behaviors or actions that contribute to increase our emissions ».

Each person generates a different CO2, and according to the Sustainable Daily source, each person produces almost 6 tons of CO2, although these are only approximate data and may vary from one place to another (for example in different countries).

Because of this, there are small details that would allow our carbon footprint reduction such as going to the market and packing our purchases in cloth bags, walking or cycling instead of using public transport (if you must go to a nearby place), details that make the air healthier, we can also plant trees, take care of and monitor them, since according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a city needs 10 trees per person to maintain a healthy ecosystem and mitigate the effects of pollution, this type of activity can be done every month with the Red de Arboles Foundation, which is in charge of planting and doing rigorous maintenance.

It is also important to mention that we must not only offset the CO2 produced day by day, we must offset the CO2 provoked on our vacations too, since the type of transport we use generates large quantities of it.

Offset your travels by planting trees

According to an analysis done by Ostelea School of Tourism Management of Barcelona, there is a big number of trees that must be planted by the fact of going to certain tourist places, since it indicates that« those who choose the United States and Thailand as a vacation destination, will be the ones who should plant more trees to try to offset that carbon footprint. In the Asian country’s case, it does not matter if you decide to go to the idyllic Phuket or to the lesser known island of Ko Samui. If you want to go to either of the two, and be sustainable at the same time, you will have to plant a total of 19 trees since to make this journey, you need 2.96 tons of carbon to cover a distance of more than 12,300 miles ».

We conclude with an important note :« it is not only the number, but the quality of the trees. The tree has to be well cared for, so that the citizen can take advantage of its benefits; if not, it is really not useful » and« We need trees to be happy » Susana Dominguez, president of « Bosques sin Fronteras », Spain.