roonee For any passionate traveller, the joy of exploring new places and experiencing different cultures is unparalleled. However, the environmental impact of travel, especially flying, has a significant impact on carbon emissions, and often leaves us with a lingering sense of guilt. Thankfully, there are a few positive and proactive ways to counterbalance this impact. Enter Treedom, a Certified B Corp on a mission to create a greener planet by planting trees across the globe. By using Treedom, travellers (and everyone else) can take a step towards environmental responsibility by paying to plant a tree that will help to make a social and environmental impact.
On the Treedom website, you can choose to plant a tree, gift a tree, and use the CO2 calculator. We decided we wanted to plant a tree here at Roonee. Although we travel with sustainability and the environment in mind, we still want to offset some of our emissions. We also wanted to check out Treedom and see how simple the process was! We were able to choose the type of tree we wanted to plant, and could see the level of environmental and social impact each tree would have if we chose it. We could also see where in the world each of the trees would be planted. In the end, we decided to plant a papaya tree in Haiti. We were able to read all about its benefits on the Treedom website, and after exploring the benefits of a few different trees, the papaya tree felt like the right choice for us. After choosing our tree, we paid our ‘tree fee’ of about £15, and the whole process was finished in just a couple of minutes. It really was very simple from start to finish.
For us, one of the things that we love the most about Treedom is the information you have access to after you’ve bought your tree. Every tree has its own web page where you can see updates. At the moment, the Roonee papaya tree is still a seed somewhere in Haiti, but we can track its progress from seed to nursery and then nursery to planting. Once the tree has been planted by a local farmer, we will get to see a photo of it which is a lovely touch. We are really looking forward to seeing our tree!
We can see all kinds of interesting information about our chosen tree including details of the potential impact it will have on the community around it. Perhaps most interesting is the part of our tree’s page where we can see how much CO2 it’s likely to absorb over the next ten years. Our tree will probably absorb up to 50kg in the next decade which is great, but it’s also worth noting that the average Westerner uses 5-10 tons of CO2 every year.
We really do urge everyone to go and work out how much CO2 they use, and then see if there is a way they can reduce and offset it! Treedom is a wonderful place to start and we recommend it to everyone!
