2022 – My Carbon Offsets, Donations and Volunteering
2022 seemed to be a return to relative normality. This meant building websites for new clients, existing clients and giving some websites a bit of a spruce in between.
As well as this, my donations, volunteering and carbon offsets continued as well as some really interesting WordPress websites build for some great environmental charities, such as Avon Needs Trees and The Great Bustard Group. This is all part of my drive to build zero carbon websites.
Volunteering
In 2022 I continued volunteering for Robin Greenfield, and environmental campaigner, activist and teacher. Rob’s work looks to teach people how to live more sustainably and I have been continually providing web development advice, support and website amendments in order to help him spread his work.
Donations
I donated to Stump Up For Trees’ campaign https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/p/stump-up-for-trees.
We are Stump Up For Trees, a community-led charity enabling woodland creation and nature restoration on land that is both ecologically and agriculturally poor. To date, we’ve planted over 200,000 trees with farmers and landowners in the Brecon Beacons area, South Wales.
We plant hedgerows, shelterbelts, agroforestry schemes and new native woodlands to enhance biodiversity, complement natural regeneration, provide natural flood management, improve and restore agricultural landscapes and support our community. We are growing-on over 90,000 saplings at our tree nursery this year. This helps us plan and plant diverse species mixes that are suitable for our widely diverse schemes. It also ensures we are planting trees that have the best chance of reaching establishment. We are powered by our volunteers in everything we do.
These funds were matched by Aviva, therefore doubling my donation.
Offsets
Offsets are rubbish, aren’t they? Well, yes and no. Many offset companies simply count the number of trees planted, or the equivalent, and make no imprtance of planting the right trees in the right place, the survivability rate of those trees, or the potential to protect trees already standing. And then there is the point that it isn’t all about trees.
Ecologi seem to cover this quite nicely.
Ecologi only supports responsible tree planting. This means supporting community-led projects where ecologically appropriate species are planted at the right place and time, and where trees are guarded from natural and man-made threats.
Importantly, while trees are a wonderful climate solution, the carbon absorbed by our trees is not taken into account as carbon avoidance here at Ecologi.
By reducing the environmental impact of everything I do at work and offsetting as a last resort, Ecologi made sense as an offsetting partner. By donating to them in 2022 I invested in a range of projects including:
- A wind power project in Mexico
- A solar PV electricity generation in Indonesia
- Capturing waste biogas for energy in Turkey
- Peatland restoration and conservation in Indonesia
- Peruvian protection of the Amazon
- And funding the planting of 94 trees