Air
Sequestering carbon and reducing air pollution
Why Air?
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are the fundamental drivers of climatic change. They've been put here by human activity, but thankfully we can get them back.
To avoid the worst effects of climate change we not only have to stop putting as much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, we also have to rapidly suck back in as much as we possibly can.
We focus on solutions that the scientific community backs as the most suitable to sequester carbon and only fund projects that follow the best practice. Most of these are nature based solutions, such as planting trees or preventing deforestation, but there are a variety of ways of approaching the issue.
We also look at air pollution when we assess projects since it is such a major health issue around the globe and inherently tied to polluting activity.
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Our tree planting partner Eden Reforestation restore native mangrove forests in Madagascar.
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Mangroves are super carbon hoovers, absorbing carbon at a rate of 4-5x that of tropical rainforests.
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Mangroves sequester this carbon in their complex root systems which help protect from coastal erosion and provide habitats for marine and terrestrial life.
Eden Reforestation
A quick word on carbon offsets
Carbon offsets are a controversial matter but we believe they have a place amongst a suite of other solutions to the climate crisis.
We look at credits from the globally recognised certifications: Gold Standard, Verra VCS and the UN Clean Development Mechanism. We remain sceptical of the true carbon offset potential of many of these projects until we pass them through our own assessment tool (read more here).
These certified carbon credits remain the globally recognised form of carbon certification but this may well change following the COP26 climate meeting this Autumn. As with all of our projects, we aim to keep as holistic a view of their impact as possible and are exploring ways of valuing embedded carbon from our other projects.
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