2023 – My Donations, Volunteering and Offsets

In 2023, as with every year, I set about undertaking my three annual commitments to sustainability:

• Volunteering at least one day for an environmental charity
• Donating at least 1% of sales to environmental projects
• Offsetting any carbon I produce

Below are some details on how I set about volunteering, donating and offsetting this year.

Volunteering

For this year’s commitment to volunteering, I spent the day with Avon Needs Trees (ANT). ANT are a tree planting and conservation charity in my home city of Bristol, who purchase land and plant trees and shrubs to increase biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

My day with ANT involved cycling to the area south of Bristol, being briefed about the project, and then planting! We planted hundreds of saplings in Great Avon Wood including Hornbeam, Pedunculate Oak, Hazel, Alder, White Willow, Field Maple, Hawthorn and Aspen. It was great fun, very satisfying and extremely tiring!

I then cycled back through the hills of the countryside, through the city and north, to my house. And then slept.

Donations

For 2023’s donations, I supported Phil Sturgeon’s tree planting and conservation charity, Protect Earth. They are a great charity undertaking projects to restore and plant woodlands all across the UK, while promising to spend every penny of donations on their work:

We work with landowners, environmental and voluntary organisations, and the general public to access land, plant trees and monitor their development.

Founded in 2020, we work for the common good and are focused on action. We are also dedicated to good governance, with a transparent ethos. Every penny donated to us and spent is for one thing: preserving this planet for future generations.

The project in question was to purchase 70 acres of disused land directly on the River Avon near Bath, next to Warleigh Wood.

This project will help secure 70 acres of disused farmland to create woodland, wetlands, and grasslands for climate and nature.

Offsets

I minimise the amount of pollution I produce in an increasing number of ways, however, inevitably I will produce some CO2e across the year.

With the remaining emissions I contribute money to Ecologi, who fund an array of projects around the world.  By donating to them in 2023 I invested in a range of projects, resulting in 54 trees of reforestation and total carbon avoidance of 4.46 tCO₂e, including:

• Wind power project in Thailand
• Protection of the Matavén forest in eastern Colombia
• Distributing cleaner cookstoves in Kenya
• Peatland restoration and conservation in Indonesia
• Avoiding methane emissions from landfill in Brazil
• Wind power project in Mexico