Trees for Cars Program

Debra,

I was involved with a Plant a Tree Program which was run by Meewasin, our local river authority in Saskatoon, Sk. Can, Our objective was to plant trees in the river valley to maintain and enhance the natural beauty etc. of the river in the city. Most of the trees were purchased by local people to commemorate a birth, graduation, death, etc. They received a card which they gave to the recipient, in many cases a plaque was engraved in honour of the recipient and they were invited to a planting ceremony. The trees were planted by the Authority every spring. We had one sponsor that was a wooden casket maker who offered to donate a tree for each of their caskets purchased in our city. They made the donation through the local agent for the caskets I believe. The good will that they earned was mainly through the promotion of the program when they were selling a casket. So, the onus was on them to promote the program. The Eddie Bauer Company did this as well. But I do not remember how it was promoted. I do think that the objective from the company was community good will. They may be able to receive carbon credits for this type of programs depending on your local arrangements.

Good Luck,
Judy Montgomery
Saskatoon

Hi Debra,

I know of two organisations that are involved in tree planting in Australia: Green Fleet - http://www.greenfleet.com.au/ Scouts - I can't find any reference to their work online but I am sure that I was told by someone that they do tree planting exercises (predominantly to reduce salinity though).

Good luck
Cecilia Kemp

Residential Energy Liaison Officer
Manly Council
P: (02) 9976 1665
F: (02) 9976 1400

Debra - Good luck.

Check out something called TerraPass in the states. It is based on carbon trading, but is designed for consumers to connect directly to reduce their footprint based on vehicle miles driven. Sadly, it is unlikely car dealers or manufacturers in the states would go anywhere near your idea at this point. The auto industry is involved in a US Supreme Court legal battle over carbon emissions and whether the Federal government has any jurisdiction regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Because of this multi-decade fight over regulations relating to mileage standards there has been little progress in working with vehicle point of sale outreach to raise awareness and push for behavior change. Vermont has considered involving car dealers in outreach to do consumer education as well as market transformation work but has stepped back due to the tangles in the courts. I hope you have great success. Your model could serve as one the states need to implement.

-Nadine Barnicle --
Canter Barnicle Communications

Opening pathways to progress through promotion of sustainable choices
Nadine Canter Barnicle, M.A.
Weybridge, Vermont 05753
P. 802 545-2070
E. [email protected]

General Motors funded a program called the GEO Tree Planting program in the 90's. They used it as part of their GEO branding and planted a tree for every GEO they sold. They turned around and funded over 71 non-profits across the US to plant over a million trees, many in urban forests (which are a lot more expensive to plant, and have a significantly deeper impact on mitigating urban air pollution.) GM discontinued both the car and the program. If you can get a hold of one of the non-profits that was involved there is A LOT to learn about what worked and what didn't. I'd check the Alliance for Community Trees. http://actrees.org/site/index.php Many of their members were involved in the program. By the by, there is some controversy in the urban forestry movement about carbon credits for tree planting. Some of the big players like American Forests will let you calculate carbon per tree on their website as part of soliciting funds for tree planting. http://www.americanforests.org/resources/ccc/ Others complain that from a systems standpoint tree planting to mitigate vehicle emissions is on the output side, which is never as efficient. They desire education campaigns aimed at sustainable behavior changes (i.e. less miles driven plus better miles per gallon vehicles reduces carbon emissions) at the input end of the system. I suppose it's all better than naught.

Bonne Chance,
Jeff Hohensee

Debra,

If you're interested in a long term tree re-vegetation project, see www.regent.org.au for info regarding the Regent Honeyeater Project - been going 10 years strong, with new volunteer groups involved all the time. Ray Thomas is the person to contact about the program - his details are on the website.

Monique

Monique Bayer
Project Manager
National Center for Sustainability
Swinburne University of Technology
John St., Hawthorn VIC
[email protected]

Debra,

The men of the trees in WA were running a program called Carbon Neutral. They had sponsorship through the RAC (WA) and the RAC promoted the program to RAC members. I'm unsure if it is still running, but you can probably check through the RAC (WA) website or on the Men Of The Trees (WA) website. Both organisations are affliations of national organisations.

Hello Debra:

Here is a link to a new report about going carbon neutral and what sources there are:http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/media/pdf/em_going_carbon_neutral.pdf. Men of Trees is shown there with their website. Other suppliers are listed there as well, including our company (Native American wind power and family dairy farm projects). Ford Motor Company has worked with TerraPass, one of our U.S.competitors, to carbon neutralize their cars. TerraPass is also listed in the link.

Keep up the good work!
George F. Hoguet

Director, Mid-Atlantic Operations
NativeEnergy, LLC
P.O. Box 1463 Media, PA 19063
(610) 566-1332
www.nativeenergy.com

Hi Guys;

It is true 'end of pipe initiatives' are not as efficient. On the other hand many education campaigns do not have significant impact on behaviour and much is spent on them. Many agree there is an awareness behaviour gap. In Ireland we have 'a power of one' TV campaign costing millions of Euro; the benefit in terms of reduced emissions is unclear. At least this tree planting is making changes for the tree suppliers and tree sellers; good PR for them and good for the environment. It also sequesters emissions. It is a pity they would not give consumers the original choice back ie: engines which run on vegetable oil. Just a choice between the vegetable oil car and the fossil fuel car at point of purchase. Peanut Oil and Rape Seed Oil were the original fuels engines ran on. This would make a positive change from the top-down. I also feel sure that many consumers would make a positive change from the bottom-up. I do think this would have an adverse impact on the price of vegetable oil. But its good for emissions. I do not advocate a 100% C change as we do not have that much vegetable oil or land to produce it; that and my secret penchant for fried eggs! But many consumers would get a chance to make a change in behaviour which might ripple through to other low carbon strategies for car manufacturers. They know Hubberts Peak in Oil consumption has either been reached or passed out but they also know that in fuel rationing that transport will not lose out. The car manufacturers current business progress and profits have a 'safety ney'. A partial change to vegetable oil might sponsor their investment in low carbon technologies for cars; both for PR and to future proof their profits.

Regards
Vincent Carragher

Just heard a radio story on the Green Car Company in Washington State (USA). They offset all of their emissions by purchasing "green tags", which go for programs such as block warmers at truck stops to reduce diesel truck idling. I suspect they are only offsetting their own company's emissions, not those produced once the car is purchased, but could be a place to start. In any case, it's worth thinking beyond trees, as there are surely other effective offset programs out there.

Debra et alia:

My name is James Conlon, and I work for a clean energy company in the states called WindCurrent. We're based near DC, and we partner with renewable energy projects throughout the country. Carbon balancing programs I have seen come in two forms: sinks and offsets. Most of the sink programs I've seen are reforestation programs, and the offset programs come in a few forms -- to grossly generalize in the transportation sector it's reducing/replacing petrochemical calories and in the power sector it's renewable energy. At the Renewable Energy Marketers Conference this week in San Francisco, we discussed how carbon needs to be addressed. The result? Lots and lots of informing. So please feel free to email me directly at [email protected] or call me [mobile: 312.217.2121]. I am happy to share my insights. In short, carbon programs amount to purchasing (read supporting) renewable energy or supporting a reforestation project. TerraPass, CarbonFund, etc... use this model. One clever idea might include school outreach to educate including a local planting initiative. In lieu of grassroots action, what one can expect to balance carbon is transferring money to an organization that uses various multipliers and equations to reach a tonnage. It can be esoteric... and it's what we have right now. On the upside the math errs on the side of caution (often by a lot).

Best,
James

Hi Debra, Great idea!

Two thoughts for you. Planet Ark organisesan annual tree planting program in Australia called the National Tree Day, and National Schools Tree Day, usually heldin July each year. One of the main sponsorsis Toyota Australia, so it may be worth exploring this existing link between Toyota and tree planting activities as a starting point for your initiative. See http://www.planetark.com.au/campaignspage.cfm/newsid/3/story.htmfor details.Regarding accessing labour to plant in the trees, you might like to consider involving schools, especially those who are part of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSi), which aims to achieve whole school change towards sustainability in thethree areas of curriculum, infrastructure and community engagment. It is within this last area of community engagement that schools would have a genuine reasonto be part of such a community-industry-school partnership. Tree planting, through programs such as the National Schools Tree Day, is already commonplace in Australian schools, but not within the context of an industry / carbon trading arrangement. So your initiative could adda very rich, real-world application tothe educational experience of the students, as well as provide person power for the tree planting.The possibilities are endless andthe benefits would be great for all involved!! See http://sustainability.ceres.org.au/files/sei_program_sustainable_schools.htmfor more information about AuSSi.Good luck!!

Cheers,
Anthony

Anthony Mangelsdorf
Sustainable Schools Initiative -
Geelong Regional Facilitator
CERES Community Environment Park
0417 015 808
[email protected]
www.ceres.org.au
http://sustainability.ceres.org.au

Dear Debra,

A colleague of mine forwarded me some correspondence you made to the web addresses copied in to this email. It was forwarded to me because it represents just one of many initiatives being pursued by Elementree Inc. You can learn more about what we do online at www.elementree.com.au. And if I could answer further questions about how we (Elementree) are pursuing and facilitating initiatives like the 'car dealership' one you speak of, I would be happy to speak with you.

Best of luck with your endeavours.
Courtney Hayes

Elementree Inc.
A new culture emerges.
PO Box 526 Wembley Western Australia 6913
Tel: +61 8 9385 9154
Fax: +61 8 9385 9156
Mob: +61 8 404 366 717
Web: www.elementree.com.au