How Planting Trees Can Help Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

There are many ways you can reduce the size of your carbon footprint: bike to work, eat less meat, turn down your thermostat. All of which are great.

But there is one way to reduce your emissions that also makes your property and community more beautiful, improves drinking water quality, and provides numerous economic and social benefits… planting trees!

Wondering how? Here are just a couple ways in which trees are vital to reducing carbon emissions and so much more.

Natural Carbon Eaters

Every living thing that exist on Earth is made up of four basic elements – carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Those four elements make up about 96 percent of your body, and most of a tree’s roots, trunk, branches, and leaves.

While we humans get most of our carbon through eating, trees breathe it in the way that we breathe in oxygen. When a tree breathes, it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen – the exact opposite of humans. As a tree matures, it can consume 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year (among other greenhouse gases like ozone), and releases enough oxygen for you to breathe for two years!

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen in its stead also helps limit global warming, providing for a cleaner, healthier climate.

So, by planting trees, you can help clean the air and fight climate change! 

Energy Savers

The importance of the shade provided by trees cannot be understated.

Trees in an urban setting make temperatures in cities comfortable. According the to EPA, the shade from trees, in combination with the water vapor they release, can reduce peak temperatures by as much as 20–45°F (11–25°C) compared to un-shaded areas.

When shade is cast on an office building or home, internal temperatures can drop 8–10°F. Some estimates say the shade from a single tree can save the same amount of energy it takes to power 10 room-sized air conditioners for 20 hours a day!

And a tree’s energy saving abilities don’t stop during the winter. Trees provide important windbreaks around buildings to reduce heat loss by as much as 50%, lowering heating costs and energy consumption – and saving you money!

This depletion in energy goes a long way when it comes to shrinking your carbon footprint, because more than a third of U.S. carbon emissions are caused by the production of electricity.

Beyond Carbon Benefits

Helping reduce carbon emissions is only one aspect of how trees help improve our lives.

Trees have an incredible ability to absorb and retain water. As rainwater falls, much of it gets picked up by trees, preventing it from ending up in storm drains. On average, a mature tree in a city can absorb up to 1,000 gallons of rainfall every year that would otherwise need to be pumped and filtered, requiring additional energy.

Trees also provide social, economic and health benefits. They create jobs, shelter, medicine and so much more. These more indirect benefits of trees help raise people out of poverty and achieve sustainable development which ultimately improves our environment.

As more people gain access to cleaner sources of energy, improved water treatment facilities, and so fourth, our environment will most certainly feel the benefits.

Plant a Tree Today!

If you’re looking to reduce your carbon footprint and give back to the planet. Trees are one of the most effective and personally beneficial ways to do it. A nicer home, a better environment, and more money in your wallet.

Those are some pretty good reasons to plant a tree.