Reforestation company Land Life and Lundin Energy have joined forces to work on a high-impact, tech-driven and multi-geography reforestation programme that consists of projects on degraded land. The partnership is Land Life’s largest to date, as the company will be planting approximately 8 million trees to restore thousands of hectares of land. This will result in the removal of 2.6 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere over a time span of 40 years.
”We are beyond excited to collaborate with Lundin Energy to get millions of trees in the ground that will not only tackle climate change but also kick-start important ecosystems and drive investment into rural communities,“ says Rebekah Braswell, CCO and founding member of Land Life Company. “Lundin Energy has been uniquely focused and results orientated in their plan to show how they are going to reduce carbon emissions and commit to positive climate action.”
Large scale plantings in Europe and Africa
Land Life Company always works on land with strong permanence, additionality and governance. For year one of the partnership, Land Life Company will reforest 1,000 hectares in Spain and 500 hectares in Ghana by planting a diverse mix of native species. It will be the first time Land Life Company plants trees in Ghana. Adding this new geography to its portfolio creates room for the company to increase its scale.
To start this initiative, Land Life has partnered with EcoPlanet Bamboo to restore an initial 500 hectares of EcoPlanet’s 11,145 hectare West African operation. The land has been degraded through a combination of charcoal driven deforestation and wildfires. This partnership will create significant environmental and climate benefits, while providing up to 120 members from the local communities with employment opportunities during the first planting season to get the trees into the ground.
In the region of Castilla y León, Spain, where planting will also take place, the land has also been severely degraded by wildfires and overgrazing. The specific selection of trees that will be planted have been chosen to improve the forest’s resilience to fire.
Decarbonization strategy
The ambitious reforestation program is part of Lundin Energy’s broader decarbonization strategy that aims for carbon neutrality from 2025. Lundin will reduce their absolute carbon footprint by over 50% by 2023 through a considerable investment in electrification and renewable energy. Lundin Energy has explicitly chosen to partner with Land Life Company with the goal to invest in natural carbon capture projects as a means to offset their remaining hard-to-abate carbon emissions.
“Not all offsets are created equally.” says Zomo Fisher, Vice President Sustainability at Lundin Energy. “As with everything we do as a Company, quality and authenticity is key, which is why we are proud to work with Land Life Company, who are developing some of the best natural carbon capture projects in the world today. Whilst we continue to drive our overall emission intensity down to the lowest possible levels, we want to avoid just buying offsets from the market and instead focus on proprietary, high-quality projects, that make an actual difference.”
Source: https://landlifecompany.com/