Embracing carbon contribution: moving beyond offsetting

By recycling carbon, forest ecosystems play a major ecological role in the Earth's equilibrium. Trees draw carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere throughout their lives and store it in their trunks, branches, roots and leaves, releasing oxygen (O2) into the air in return. This is made possible by the photosynthesis mechanism, which enables trees to produce energy (sugar) using CO₂, water and the sun. In this way, all the trees growing together form an ecosystem that extracts carbon dioxide and stores it over the long term.

When you buy one or more trees, your ecological contribution is accompanied by ownership of the tree or trees you buy. These trees grow in our European forests and are managed by our skilled forestry team from the beginning to the end of their cycle. However, the entire profit of their felling goes to you when the trees are mature enough to be cut through careful selection. You receive a certificate that states your tree ownership. By acquiring carbon removal credits, you enable a forest stand to be maintained for at least a hundred years, with several generations of trees sequestering carbon over the long term. In this way, you receive a carbon certificate for each credit that justifies the capture of the equivalent of 1 tonne of CO₂. These two solutions enable you to contribute to the development of forest ecosystems and their biodiversity. Remember that the forest stand is subject to the permanence clause for carbon credits, whereas the tree itself is not permanent (for more details, see our white paper on carbon credits)

Carbon offsetting can be seen as claiming a right to keep polluting: I continue to emit as much CO₂ and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere, in exchange for which I compensate by buying trees, carbon credits or other actions that help to reduce the stock of GHGs in the atmosphere. That's why we prefer the principle of ecological contribution, which is a gift to nature that benefits us all and simultaneously reduces our carbon footprint. Therefore, The contribution is voluntary, whereas carbon offsetting sounds like an obligation. It is indeed necessary to offset our collective carbon footprint to achieve global carbon neutrality as quickly as possible, but what is done voluntarily is always preferable to what is done under duress and is seen as an obligation.

To remarkably reduce our carbon footprint, we must change some lifestyle habits. This means paying attention to how we travel (transport is still one of the leading causes of CO₂ emissions), how we heat our homes, and how we consume and produce. At the same time, it is also possible to support concrete, sustainable ecological actions such as the planting and management of mixed-species forests with continuous cover, the development of actions in favour of biodiversity (planting honey hedges for insects, restoring ponds, etc.) or the purchase of high-qualitycarbon removal credits that support these sustainable, local and verifiable ecological actions.

Carbon neutrality makes no sense on the scale of one individual or a company; it can only be achieved on a global scale, and we need to get there as quickly as possible to curb the effects of climate change, which are already underway. It will, however, be achieved by the sum of individual and collective efforts. So we can say that reducing an individual's carbon footprint helps to slow climate change, even if it takes everyone working together to achieve a convincing overall result. It's the story of Pierre Rabhi's hummingbird: its contribution to putting out the fire is just a drop of water, but the drops of water form the small streams, creating the rivers that fill the seas. Setting an example is also very important; some people need to start the ball rolling to encourage others to do the same.

As part of the fight against global warming, a compensation mechanism has been developed under the name of carbon credit. First, on a regulated market to force companies in the most polluting industrial sectors to limit and offset their greenhouse gas emissions, then on a voluntary carbon market to support other companies desire to make an ecological contribution. Today, individuals can also join this global effort to achieve carbon neutrality. By financially supporting the capture of a tonne of CO₂ through Nature-based Solutions, an afforestation project, for example, where you receive a carbon credit in exchange. This becomes a security that can be resold or traded on the voluntary carbon market. The quality carbon credits issued on this market thus make it possible to support actions to enhance nature and combat the effects of climate change. There are various types of credits, but the most valuable are carbon capture credits.

When we talk about tonnes of CO₂ to be mitigated, it is crucial to understand that we are talking about CO₂ equivalent: a unit of measurement that covers all the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. Strictly speaking, CO₂ is not the only gas whose excess emissions need to be offset; it is referred to as CO₂ for convenience. To rebalance the proportion of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere, we need to capture as much of it as possible. Of course, once again, this only makes sense in terms of avoiding and reducing emissions. We can work to sequestrate all the CO₂ we can. Still, the fact remains that the extraction of fossil carbon that we have been doing for over a century has already led to disruptions in the biosphere's global carbon cycle that we will not be able to repair on our own scale. After all, this carbon cycle has been in place for 4 billion years. So, first and foremost, we need to reduce our carbon-based energy consumption. Once this has been done, it is possible to contribute to forming carbon sinks capable of sequestering carbon over the long term. Given thata tree absorbs around 25 kg of CO₂ per year, which is an average to be used with a thousand precautions, as everything depends on the species of tree, its age, the climate and soil in which it grows and the ecosystem in which it is located, we can conclude that it takes around half a century of tree growth for it to sequester a tonne of CO₂. As mentioned above, this kind of figure should be treated with caution (not least because a tree does not capture all the greenhouse gases and is not permanent in the sense of the criteria for eligibility for carbon credits, whereas a forest stand is). Still, it gives an idea of how long nature has to work to reabsorb what we have emitted in a concise space.

Carbon neutrality is becoming more and more commonplace, whereas it would be better to aim for net zero emissions. Carbon neutrality is the objective set by most of the world's major states to limit the rise in global temperatures and all the damage that goes with it. However, carbon neutrality implies offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions without necessarily reducing them beforehand or at the same time. Some companies claim to be carbon neutral because they have offset all their emissions by purchasing carbon credits. Unfortunately, while achieving carbon neutrality is a significant first step, it will not be enough to counter the negative effects of our GHG emissions. Being carbon neutral means we absorb as much CO₂ as we emit every year or for every action. But since we have emitted a surplus of carbon over the last two centuries, we need to go further and go beyond carbon neutrality by reducing the surplus of carbon already emitted. It's like having to pay off our ancestors' debt. We can start by avoiding leaving more debt to our children, but the ideal would be to leave them a world that is no longer saddled with debt.