Earth Day is this week and Arbor Day is just around the corner, making it the perfect time to reflect on our conservation efforts and plans for the future.
Since our founding in 2003, GreenTrees is incredibly proud to be the only carbon removal program in the U.S. open to both small and large landowners. We work hand in hand with our landowner partners, some with as little as seven acres, to launch high-quality reforestation projects and bring significant improvements to the local ecosystem in addition to generating carbon credits. Over the past 20 years, we have planted 130,000+ acres of forests that have removed more than six million metric tons of carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere and these existing planted acres will remove a projected 30 million metric tons of carbon over the next 40 years!
In March, we launched Virginia’s first-ever reforestation project for generating carbon removal credits by planting 60,000 trees on 95 total acres in Fauquier and Shenandoah Counties in Virginia. In addition, we just launched South Carolina’s very first reforestation project for generating carbon credits, planting 280,000 longleaf pine trees on 511 total acres in Williamsburg County.
GreenTrees has grown alongside the carbon market over the past two decades and the increased demand for carbon offset credits as enterprises grow their sustainability efforts is heartening. Looking forward, we are focused on meeting this demand and increasing our efforts to combat the climate crisis. Some of our main priorities include exploring new technologies to grow our impact – like using LiDAR to create a digital twin of every tree project as well as opportunities to bring GreenTrees’ model to other parts of the world.
Our mission is critical as the climate crisis is only becoming more pressing. Nature is the most scalable technology for repairing, recalibrating and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and we are committed to taking care of the environment for future generations. It’s an exciting time for GreenTrees as we look back on the hard work and perseverance that went into the past 20 years and enter our next chapter with a renewed excitement and dedication to reforestation.
– Chandler Van Voorhis, GreenTrees co-founder and managing partner
About the author
chandler@acre-investment.com
Chandler Van Voorhis is a leading expert in conservation and ecological markets, with experience including a TEDx Talk, guest lectures at Princeton and Yale, and several publications on natural capital. Before co-founding C2I, he co-hosted the nationally syndicated GreenWave Radio show. He received the ChevronTexaco Conservation Award in 2002 and served as President of the Alliance for Environmental Education. Currently, he serves on advisory boards for IETA Natural Climate Solutions and RenewWest and is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America.
