Climate Change & Sustainability in Numbers

Restoring our planet is no easy task. Policymakers are struggling to maintain a balance between their growth objectives and ecosystem preservation efforts. The Paris Agreement, the latest international agreement that came into action in 2015, outlines sustainability goals spearheaded by the United Nations on Climate Change.

It’s a great starting point, but as we move into the future we look to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future, as unfortunately, what has been done so far simply isn’t enough.But even so, how can a business really reduce its carbon footprint? Most people don’t even know where to start. What a pain in the back it is, after all! And to be honest, they’re right. At Forestmatic we understand this, so we strive to supply businesses with an easy way to start decreasing their carbon footprint — completely hassle-free.

The agreement covers only one-third of the reduction of emissions needed to keep the increase in the Earth’s temperature below 2°C. To prevent this from happening, our global net CO2 emissions must drop by 45% by 2030 in the hopes to reach net zero by around 2050. The Global Footprint Network establishes an annual Earth Overshoot Day, the day in which we start consuming more resources than the planet is capable of delivering. You can think of it as an ecological debt we owe to our planet every year. In 2019, this day fell on July 29th, the earliest ever, meaning that for the following 5 months we were in debt with Earth. Imagine not being able to pay your bills from August to December… we squatted on our planet for almost half a year!

But there is a silver lining. Nature-based climate solutions can contribute to a third of CO2 reductions by 2030. That’s why we encourage companies to plant trees with us. Plus, forests are home to more than 80% of all living species — and it’s not just animals. This also includes more than 1.6 billion human beings who depend on forests for their livelihoods. And if we talk about agriculture, about 2.6 billion people directly depend on it.

So, if you — like us — dream of the impact of restoring our lands, giving green lungs back to our planet, and letting nature prosper along with us, let’s start with this: Project Drawdown has discovered that restoring the world’s tropical forests alone could keep an estimated 61 gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. It would be similar to taking 444 Million cars off the street — almost double the number of registered cars in Europe!

Here’s a bunch of strategies to start reforesting and protecting the green lungs we still have:

• Public policies and real enforcement of existing anti-logging laws.
• Market-driven mechanisms, like eco-certification programs that inform consumers and affect purchasing decisions — or an even easier “plug & plant” solution like Forestmatic.
• Programs that enable wealthy nations and corporations to make payments to countries and communities so that their forests can be maintained.

Creating new forests where none existed before is the goal of reforestation (or afforestation). Degraded agricultural lands and other lands corrupted from uses such as mining, are strategic to the planting of trees and perennial biomass. According to research by Project Drawdown, climate actions are estimated to produce about US$26 trillion in economic benefits by 2030. Our transition to renewable energy alone will create around 18 million jobs.

Tree planting on degraded lands could bring somewhere between US$164.86 -259.5 billion in lifetime net operational savings, with an additional estimated US$2.15–3.38 trillion in lifetime net profit… There’s only benefits to come.

This is vital information to understand — not only to show that restoring our planet is good, but also to understand that it is economically viable. And Forestmatic is here to help you make it happen.

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