Our Carbon Emissions and Sustainability Strategy
By Apurva Munjal, Consultant
At Ecoveritas, we are working to reduce emissions across our value chains and activities. To continue the trajectory towards net zero aspirations, we have decided to invest in a nature-based solution to prevent the carbon associated with our projected future investments from entering the environment.
We are committed to balancing emissions by investing time and resources in responsible forest conservation and restoring the UK’s temperate rainforests by partnering with Friends of Glenan Woods.
To stop and reduce deforestation and forest degradation, maintaining already existing primary and native forests should be a major priority. They serve as hubs for biodiversity, long-term carbon sinks, and stores for novel materials. Thus, through sustainable forest management, we aim to protect the trees we already have and to let the trees continue to grow and reach their full ecological potential – so that they can store carbon and create a forest with all the necessary ecosystem services.
Why Glenan Woods?
One must select the locations and trees that will function best to promote long-term climate resilience and sustainability of the forests while avoiding unanticipated negative consequences.
Glenan Wood is 146 hectares of ancient woodland on ‘Argyll’s Secret Coast’ on the Cowal Peninsula in Argyll, Scotland. Through its ability to sequester carbon, the temperate rainforest will greatly impact biodiversity and the capacity to adapt to climate change. The popular view is that cool rainforests store more carbon per acre than tropical rainforests. The enormous tree trunks in temperate forests and their rich soil and foliage all serve as carbon storage sites.
Additionally, UK rainforests have a huge potential to store and sequester carbon due to the lichens, mosses, and ferns that cover the trees, known as epiphytes. The woodland at Glenan has mature pedunculate and sessile oak, downy birch, pine, hazel, alder, rowan, holly, and willow. Oak trees are some of the greatest at sequestering carbon. Compared to a forest of other trees of the same size, a mature oak forest can store up to 50% more carbon.
Based on a few assumptions and our research, an Oak tree has required the sequestration of 16.5 tons of CO2. Spread over 100 years, an average of 165kg CO2 per year. As an estimate, to balance out our emissions of 7.57 tonnes CO2e, we will need to preserve approximately 46 Oak trees to balance our emissions.
The Way Forward
As part of our sustainability and team-building strategy, Ecoveritas will help Glenan Woods by contributing to the preservation and conservation of the woodland. By taking on the responsibility for maintaining and preserving Glenan’s distinctive ecosystem, we wish to inspire all our clients to do the same and devote their resources to safeguarding the unique temperate rainforest of the UK as part of their sustainability strategy.
In addition to balancing out our emissions as a top goal, our collaboration will also improve the local ecosystem through promoting biodiversity. We hope that working together can help businesses shift their focus from immediate individual carbon neutrality to long-term contributions to future global carbon neutrality.
