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Planting trees is a great way to offset your carbon footprint and become carbon neutral. Through photosynthesis trees absorb carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and wood.

By planting trees you will not only be offsetting carbon emissions, but also helping provide wildlife habitat for many hundreds of years, reducing poverty and passing on to future generations a fascinating and highly valuable ecological heritage.

Our CO2 offset scheme partners work with tree planting teams across the UK, providing the opportunity for individuals and organisations to plant native British broad-leaved trees in a UK region of your choice. On average, one broad leaf tree will absorb in the region of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide during its full life-time (approximately 100 years) and most of the planting takes place in school locations where the children also learn about climate change.

In addition to planting trees in the UK, the UK Tree Planting scheme includes a VCS "Buddying" scheme where, for every tree planted in the UK, another is planted in either Brazil or Kenya, ensuring that at least one tonne of CO2 is sequestered from the atmosphere.

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The South American Projects CO2 offsetting portfolio includes the Portel-Para REDD project in the Amazon rainforest, the Mariposas Hydroelectric Project, in Chile and the Peralta I Wind Power Project in Uraguay.

The Amazon is the largest remaining rainforest on our planet and is known for its amazing biodiversity, including thousands of species that aren't found anywhere else on earth.. The Portel-Para REDD project is working to prevent unplanned deforestation in native forests, which has occurred due to logging, squatting and attempts to implement pastures. The project is expected to avoid over 22 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions over a 40 year period, which will be achieved by managing the land in the form of a private conservation reserve, through rigorous monitoring and enforcement.

The Mariposas Hydroelectric Project consists of the construction and operation of a Run-Of-River hydropower plant that uses the waters of the first section of the Maule Norte Alto canal, in the San Clemente commune, in the country of Chile. The project generates 6.3 MW of electricity from renewable hydrological resources, using water from the canal before returning it to the same irrigation system for use by the local community.

The Peralta wind farm's total capacity of 117.5 MW and estimated 300 GWh/pa is expected to supply green energy to around 150,000 typical Uruguayan households, reducing CO2 emissions by over 90,000 tonnes per year.

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The Kikuyu escarpment forest with its great mixture of both large and small wildlife animals, birds and butterflies, has been the beautiful gateway to the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. Traditionaly, the environment was the source of water and livelihood for the neighbouring communities.

In just a few years, wanton and deliberate destruction of the escarpment environment through charcoal burning, logging for timber and fuel wood, ring-debarking of medicinal trees and overgrazing has resulted to virtual depletion of forest vegetation cover. This has in return resulted to drying of springs/rivers/streams, soil erosion, emigration of wildlife/birds, scorching sun, human-wildlife conflict and the scarring of once a beautiful scenic landscape that generated income through tourism.

The Reforestation in Kenya project aims to plant hundreds of thousands of indigenous trees on the worst degraded areas, returning the valley to its former glory.

Additional Benefits through your tree pledge in addition to Offsetting Carbon emissions include;

• Poverty reduction through employment creation.
• Water catchment areas will be conserved providing water/food security and the trees also assist in the prevention and control of soil erosion.
• Birds, butterflies and other wildlife habitats will be conserved and others created.
• Beautification of our locality and the roads.
• Nutritional Benefit from some of the fruit trees planted like the Avocado trees as well as an additional source of income for the community.
• Ecotourism will be promoted with better forests giving alternative occupation to those previously engaging in destructive forest activities.

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The Global Green Energy portfolio invests in wind, solar and hydroelectric power projects around the globe. Below are examples of some of the larger projects that you are helping to build in the Phillipines, India and China.

Panama Renewables India has moved over 180MW of power generation away from traditional fossil fuels onto renewable natural sources that do not contribute to pollution and climate change. They have completed two wind farms in the state of Maharashtra, India and have commenced Construction on a third 100 MW Wind Energy project in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Together these three wind farms will reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power stations by nearly 500,000 tCO2e per year.

The Solar Grouped Project by ACME has 11 project for a combined installed capacity of 381.5 MW, providing enough clean, renewable energy to power 162,558 homes for an average family of four. These solar projects are located on various sites throughout India within the states of Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Chattishgarh, Telangana, Odisha, and Uttrakhand. Electricity delivered by the projects would have otherwise been generated by the operation of grid-connected coal power plants and by the addition of new fossil fuel generation sources into the Indian grid. The revenue from the sale of carbon offsets was necessary to build as well as to operate and maintain the project. The project created local employment opportunities during the construction and operation phases, and has led to infrastructure development in the region, as well as improved communication with nearby cities.

The Helios Solar Farm in Negros, the Philipines is the biggest solar farm in South-East Asia with a total output of 132 MW. Consisting of over 450,000 solar panels, it contributes to making up some of the chronic shortfall in the Philippines' power production with green energy and it supplies more than 170,000 households with clean, renewable energy.

The Dachunhe Sanji 6 MW hydro project utilizes water resources from the Dachunhe River to generate electricity, which will be delivered to the China Southern Power Grid without CO2 emissions. There is no reservoir or submerged area near the Project since it consists of a diversion dam with a river diversion tunnel. The purpose of the project is to utilize the water resources to generate clean electricity and achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions by displacing an equivalent electricity supplied by Central China Power Grid, which is predominantly powered by fossil fuel-fired power plants.

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The Community Projects portfolio helps local communities around the globe to improve their lives whilst reducing CO2 emissions. Below are just some examples of the projects that you are helping to fund.

The Clean and Efficient Cooking and Heating Project in China helps people from the Shanxi, Hubei and Guizhou Provinces of China save money, while creating jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The project encourages a switch in fuel through the use of cleaner cookstoves that use excess agriculture residues (a 100% renewable fuel source), renewable wood, or improve the efficiency of coal consumption. To date, operating as a non-profit business, over 128,000 stoves have been sold avoiding more than 500,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year.

In the Lango region in Northern Uganda, access to safe water is a major challenge and the Lango Safe Water Project not only works to ensure that rural communities have access to safe water but also builds their capacity to maintain safe water sources for years to come. Having no safe water access forces communities to use unsafe sources such as streams to get their water, which has to be boiled to make it safe. To boil the water, communities collect and burn firewood, which places greater pressure on dwindling forests and produces CO2 emissions. Approximately 100,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions reductions are achieved per year and over 40,000 individuals have gained access to safe water, reducing exposure to waterborne illness, which in turn reduces school absenteeism caused by waterborne diseases.

The Breathing Space Improved Cooking Stoves project is based in Deodurg, a biomass deficient and drought prone district in Karnataka, India. So far, we have replaced inefficient traditional cookstoves in 21,500 households with the efficient fuel wood single pan "Chulika" cookstove. In the area households generally cannot afford clean cookstoves and are dependent on gathering firewood. The Chulika saves fuel wood by 67.5% and by reducing fuel wood consumption, the project reduces greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the use of non-renewable biomass. Less time is needed for gathering wood and cooking, which provides additional time for other activities that generate income.

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The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. These CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialized countries to a meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

The mechanism stimulates sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialized countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission reduction limitation targets.

The CDM is the main source of income for the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund, which was established to finance adaptation projects and programmes in developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The Adaptation Fund is financed by a 2% levy on CERs issued by the CDM.

Benefits of CDM projects include investment in climate change mitigation projects in developing countries, transfer or diffusion of technology in the host countries, as well as improvement in the livelihood of communities through the creation of employment or increased economic activity.

CDM projects have planted over 150 million trees, generated over 100,000 gigawatts of power from renewable energy and provided more than 840,000 people with clean drinking water. To date there are over 7,800 registered CDM CO2 reduction projects in 140 countries, which have offset over 2 billion tonnes of CO2e in the developing world.