Offset Packages – Billed Monthly

Gift Certificates

PLANT A TREE - Brazilian Mata Atlântica Agroforestry Project

Make a difference one tree at a time!  These native trees are planted in the endangered atlantic rainforest of Brazil (Mata Atlântica).

Enter how many trees you would like to plant.  Each tree costs $4.

Tree Facts

·  A single mature tree can release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings.
·  Each person in the U.S. generates approximately 20-24 tons of CO2 each year.

·  Deforestation is one of the main causes of atmospheric carbon dioxide; burning and cutting millions of acres of trees each year, it is responsible for 20-25 per cent of all carbon emissions.

·  A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Shade provided by trees can also reduce your air conditioning bill by 10 to 15 percent.

·  It only takes 30 trees to offset the C02 produced by one car annually.

·  An average American uses about 750 pounds of paper every year, and 95% of homes are built using wood. That means each person uses the equivalent of one 100 foot tall, 16 inch diameter, tree every year for their paper and wood product needs.

·  There are about 20,000 tree species in the world. The United States has one of the largest tree treasuries second only to India.

·  Three trees planted in the right place around buildings can cut air-conditioning costs up to 50 percent.

·  Trees improve water quality by slowing and filtering rain water as well as protecting aquifers and watersheds.

·  The Hyperion on Redwood national park is believed to be the worlds tallest living tree, standing a formidable, 376′ tall.

·  1 tree makes on average 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333 sheets

·  The average U.S. office worker prints 10,000 pages per year

·  In 2004 the United States used 8 million tons of office paper (3.2 billion reams). That’s the equivalent of 178 million trees!

WHAT WE DO

Our mission:  To harmonize humanity with nature, so that ALL life may thrive.

Our goal: To develop and support projects that benefit climate, environment and social circumstance.

How:  We use Fair Carbon™ offsets and tree-planting programs as a vehicle for supporting this goal.  We sell these Fair Carbon offsets and tree-plantings to individuals, companies and organizations that want to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.  The money spent on these offsets goes to fund the projects that reforest, protect forests, or facilitate switching to renewable fuel sources.  Our projects also involve and benefit local communities.

B-Corp:  Big Tree Climate Fund is the first B Corporation in its sector.  Unlike traditional corporations, Certified B Corporations are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on the long term interests of their employees, suppliers, community, consumers, and environment.  Sustainability is part of our fiduciary duty, part of our DNA.

Education: We teach people about how to decrease their environmental impact. We do this through consultations, highlighting emission intensive activities and by listing conservation tips.

Retailing offsets:  We provide access to Fair Carbon offsets and tree-plantings. These valuable tools allow individuals and business to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability while helping them reduce their carbon footprints.

Fair Carbon™

What is Fair Carbon?  It is a type of carbon offset or tree-planting program that does more than just guarantee that greenhouse gases are being removed from the atmosphere.  Fair Carbon programs support the three pillars of sustainability: fair economics, social justice, and environmental stewardship.

Projects that create Fair Carbon are greenhouse gas emission reduction projects and tree-planting programs that additionally support local communities and environments.  Big Tree Climate Fund feels the solutions to preventing further global climate change have to come from the bottom up, rather than the top down.  Local communities must be engaged in and BENEFIT from any attempts at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and planting trees in their area.  It is from these beliefs that the idea for Fair Carbon was born.

Big Tree Climate Fund provides Fair Carbon offsets and develops projects using the Fair Carbon Methodology

Fair Carbon™ offsets meet Big Tree’s standards for being certified emission reductions and for providing benefits to local communities, environments and biodiversity.  Offset projects are vetted by Big Tree to assess whether they meet our high standards in addition to being certified by third parties for the emission reductions and the community and environmental benefits. Third party co-benefit certifications that often qualify as Fair Carbon include the Social Carbon standard and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity standard.  Another standard that may qualify as Fair Carbon is the Plan Vivo standard with its support of small land-owners.  In all cases the projects are individually examined to ensure the design meets Big Tree’s Fair Carbon standard and will provide robust climatic, social and environmental benefits.

The Fair Carbon Methodology is a tool used by Big Tree to design and implement its carbon offset and tree-planting projects so that they will show improvement in the following metrics throughout the life of the project and beyond.  The metrics are studied before the project with a variety of methods, including a community questionnaire, and then annually during to project to assess how the project is affecting local communities and the surrounding area.  The Fair Carbon metrics are:

Social Justice

• Education
  • Net enrollment in primary school
  • Female primary school completion rate
  • Male primary school completion rate
  • Percentage of adults (age 15+) that are literate
  • Percentage of women  (age 15+) that are literate
  • Percentage of youth (under age 15) that are literate
•  Health
  • Mortality rate of children under age 5
  • Access to health clinic
  • Percentage of children under age 5 that are fully immunized against TB and measles
• Water
  • Access to clean water
  • type of water source (unimproved, well, or piped)
• Food/Nutrition
  • Access to protein, vegetal source, and fiber
•  Access to concept of sustainability and resource scarcity
• Access to recreation

Fair Economics

• Land tenure rights (use, control, or transfer rights)
• Access to land, community land or hold legal certificate for their land
• Access to profit sharing
• Percentage of adults (age 15+) receiving region’s minimum wage
• Percentage of men (age 15+) receiving country’s minimum wage
• Percentage of women (age 15+) receiving country’s minimum wage
• Percentage of adults living under $2 a day
• Percentage of the community with physical assets “critical and common” for viable economic growth.  Can be related to land, tillage, transportation, communication/media, or other.
• Access to finance, traditional or modern.

Environmental

• Regional
  • Percentage of area that is forest
  • Ratio of protected to non-protected land
• Regional as it pertains to community
  • Prevalence of other tree plantings
  • Prevalence of using native trees in planting
  • Prevalence of planting timber trees
• Project area
  • Biodiversity in the area
  • Soil Quality
  • Prevalence of invasive species
  • Amount of sequestered carbon

A project that generates Fair Carbon offsets or tree-plantings, in addition to achieving its greenhouse gas benefits, strives to achieve improvements in all the above metrics within the local community and area.

Big Tree Climate Fund develops and sources Fair Carbon.  Look for it when you purchase carbon offsets and know that your money is going towards holistic solutions toward preventing further climate change.