BE CARBON NEUTRAL

BE CARBON NEUTRAL

People can do what governments and companies can’t – reduce the world’s (not just their own) CO2 emissions dramatically! We can do it at Zero Cost, in Zero Time (almost), and have huge amounts of fun doing it - by Giving Gifts!    

To us, a person can be said to be “CARBON NEUTRAL” if they offset their equal share of the planet’s total CO2 emissions.   

People have written books all about CO2 emissions, how much we produce, how to measure them, reduce them, and so on, so let’s keep it super simple to start with.  

The world produces 37 billion tonnes of CO2 every year and there are 8 billion people on the planet, so that's 4.6 tonnes per person per year. Let’s be clear, this is each person’s equal share of the total CO2 produced by themselves and every industry, car, coal mine, plane journey, animal, everything on the planet!

Data shows countries have wildly different levels of emissions, but let’s at least start with our ‘global average share’ as ‘global citizens’, so we can each say, ‘I’m doing my fair share globally’. See 

We can’t personally reduce emissions for a coal mine or cement factory, so we must offset our share of other peoples’ CO2 pollution. It sounds incredibly unfair, BUT if we can do it at Zero Cost by giving gifts, then why not? 

There are all sorts of ways of offsetting CO2 emissions and one of the most well-known, well studied, and accepted, is planting trees. 

Trees recycle Carbon Dioxide. They do it by absorbing CO2 through their leaves and use photosynthesis to release the ‘O’ or Oxygen back into the air and retain the ‘C’ or Carbon in their tree trunks, branches, and roots. Trees ‘eat’ Carbon Dioxide and about 50% of a tree is pure Carbon! 

A Mangrove Trees absorbs 308 kgs of Co2, so each Band of Courage absorbs 3.08 tonnes of CO2. 

In a recent survey of Australians, it was revealed we spend an average of $1,200 dollars a year on gifts for birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Mothers and Dad days, Valentines, weddings and so on. That’s $100 a month, each!   

So, if you are going to spend over $1,000 a year or thereabouts giving gifts, why not give gifts which also plant trees, at no extra cost? 

Bands of Courage is an option, every band plants 10 trees. With pieces starting at $25 each, your $1,200 buys could buy up to 48 bands planting up to 480 trees to recycle 147 tonnes of CO2.

Just 2 bands plants 20 trees recycling 6.16 tonnes of CO2, more than the 4.6 tonnes that represent our equal per capita share of annual global CO2 emissions. 

Just 5 bands plants 50 trees offsetting 15.4 tonnes of CO2, more than the 14.8 tonnes of that represent each Australian's share of the total annual CO2 emissions produced by Australia. 

Copyright Bands of Courage 2023