• CO2 how many trees to be neutral

I'm just curious but how many trees need I plant to be CO2 neutral?

    That is excellent question and I would like to know this too.

    It’s not entirely clear how many trees you would have to plant, from the data bunq has shared so far.

    According to bunq, in order to compensate CO2 for the average European person (which is responsible for about 7 tons of CO2 every year, that number is correct as you can find on Wikipedia) you either have to plant

    A. 10 trees a month for two years totalling 240 trees (source: https://www.bunq.com/blog/how-bunq-green-card-plants-trees)
    Or B. 10 trees a month for five years totalling 720 trees (source: https://www.bunq.com/assets/elements/designElements/Comment-est-ce-que-la-bunq-Green-Card-plante-des-arbres.pdf)
    or C. 24 trees a month for two years totalling 576 trees (source: https://together.bunq.com/d/26986-the-math-behind-bunq-supergreen).

    The sources also explain that a tree will take 308 kg of CO2 out of the atmosphere in its 25 year lifetime, or 12,3 kg per year.

    Aside from all calculations laying very far apart from each other, there are two things is one big thing to question here:

    1. It appears in bunq’s calculation, the captured CO2 of the trees “in their 25-year lifetime” is measured against the CO2 consumption of an EU citizen per year.

    That’s a big difference, meaning it will take 25 years for that CO2 of one year to be compensated, so for the biggest part of the time until 2045 most of that 7 tons of CO2 will still be in the earths atmosphere. Secondly, if you have to plant trees for 2-5 years to compensate just one year of CO2, how will you compensate for those other years. That 7-28 tons of CO2 left unaccounted for.

    1. To plant 10 or 24 trees each month, you would have to spend 1.000 to 2.400 euros using card payments alone to reach that number. How realistic is that?

    Keep in mind, the money you spend on rent, mortgage and health insurance don’t count. For Dutch people, iDEAL payments don’t count either, which has the largest market share on online payments in the NL.

    And how are people spending that much money on card payments alone to be seen as average EU citizens? Most EU citizens don’t make enough to spend 1.000 euros on card payments or don’t even make 2.400 euros at all. These big spending bunq users are likely to have a much larger CO2 footprint than the average EU citizen.

    I’ve asked about this in two topics before, one of which has been deleted. It would be really great if bunq could be just a little bit more transparent about how the numbers are supposed to add up, in order to feel the claim of “becoming CO2 free in two years” is correct.

    Edit 9/6: some corrections after the calculations on CO2 absorption by trees were cleared up in comments below.

      @Rooligan#169316 bunq a partager un lien qui vous permet de faire le calcul précis en fonction de votre mode de vie.
      Vous pourrez savoir combien de CO2 vous rejetez par an, et le nombre d’arbres nécessaires pour être CO2 Free.

      https://footprintcalculator.henkel.com/en

      Le test prend 5 minutes environ. 🌳🌈

        @NielsT#169323 I think bunq is calculating with an average. Bunq knows the payment behavior of its customers, so I think bunq can calculate a good estimate. Looking at the math topic that bunq has published, they claim an average 24 trees per month that bunq-users plant, with the disclaimer that they've also included business spending, which is higher than a person would have, so I think that this is why it's a bit high.

        For me personally the amount of trees is as follows. Since the release of the Metal Card (it was called Green Card back then), I've planted 107 trees. This was done over a period of 7 months. On average, this is 15 trees per month. As a disclaimer I must say that I'm an early adopter, meaning that I plant 2 trees per €100,- instead of the €100,- that you get when getting the SuperGreen subscription right now.

        With an average of 15 trees per month, this is a factor of 1,6 less than the bunq-calculated average, which means that I would probably take 1,6 x 2 years = 3,2 years to become CO2 neutral. I think this makes sense.

        To get this many trees, I must say that I have made some changes in my payment behavior. I don't use iDEAL where I can use a credit card. Not only because it counts towards my tree-count, but also because my credit card payments are protected. If something goes wrong with the purchase, getting back your money is much easier. Also in stores I tend to use my Metal card instead of my Maestro. And then there's the addition that also my other cards count towards the tree count, which is nice too (but for 1 tree instead of 2).

        In conclusion, I think bunqs estimate of 2 years is a bit optimistic, because the average non-business user doesn't get that much trees. If you see my personal spending, you see that for me 3,2 years could be the threshold (which is also not so long if you ask me).

          @CedricMillet#169347 This is quite nice. I've filled it in with all information I have (which was pretty accurate and the result was as follows:

          • My annual footprint is 9.8 tons of CO2
          • This corresponds to: Driving 49050 km with a car
          • 1.10 soccer fields covered with trees
          • The CO2 stored in 785 trees for one year

          Bunq calculated with 7 tons of CO2, which is not that far off. The website says I'm above average (mainly because of the mobility usage).

          Now comes the good part:
          If I extrapolate the 9,8 tons of CO2 with the bunq-math-logic, I come at a total of 822 trees (7 tons CO2 equals 576 trees, so 10 tons equals 822 trees), which is about the same as this website says (difference of 37 trees (5%)). I call this a pretty on point estimate from bunq actually.

            @TwitNour#169351 Bravo @Nour 🌳🎉

            Oui c’est plutôt sympa à faire.

            J’ai une empreinte carbone de 3,94 tonnes de CO2 mais je n’utilise pas la voiture 🤪 🚲🚲🚲
            Et il faut que je plante 315 arbres 🌳 /an

              @CedricM#169352 That is quite the difference with me. The car makes a big difference. In fact, without the car my CO2-footprint would be 4,3 tons, which is MUCH less than average. That car needs to go 😂

                @TwitNour#169353 Haha 😆 c’est effectivement une grosse différence !
                C’est le moment de passer à l’électrique ⚡️

                  @CedricM#169354 I would go full electric if I would have to buy a new car, a luxury I don't have at the moment, but you never know what the future might hold!

                    @TwitNour#169348

                    Good job calculating your footprint!

                    I think you're missing one thing: if you take >1 year to plant trees to compensate your CO2 for one year, how do you compensate your CO2 output in the following years?

                    In your calculations, you spend 3,2 years to compensate one year of CO2 by planting trees. So by March 2023, you'll be done compensating for your CO2 in 2020, and in the spring of 2026 you'll have compensated your CO2 for 2021. In your case they're already a factor 3,2 off. And for new SuperGreen users, who get 1 tree planted for every €100, that would mean they are a factor 6,4 off. Or am I overlooking something?

                      @NielsT#169376 how do you compensate your CO2 output in the following years?

                      In my eyes the trees that you plant keep reducing CO2, also after one year, because obviously they keep growing. Or am I seeing this wrong?

                        We really would need to take into account the age of the user, right?

                          @TwitNour#169377 Oh wait, you’re right, I overlooked that they used to right number (12,3kg a year per tree) in one of their calculations. Thanks for pointing that out to me. That sure is comforting.

                          I still have doubt on whether any user can plant that number of trees in two years on card payments alone, but perhaps @bunq can clear that up with some anonymised data about their users?

                            @Jakob-Y#169378 We really would need to take into account the age of the user, right?

                            Can you elaborate on this? I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

                            @NielsT#169380 Thanks for pointing that out to me.

                            You're welcome!

                              @TwitNour#169382 Can you elaborate on this? I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

                              Of course that depends on your goal ultimately, but if you want to "erase" your CO2 footprint, you'd also need to take into account all the CO2 that you produced during your lifespan already.

                              I calculated this in a spreadsheet now, taking my birth year 1993, a CO2 footprint of 7 tons per year, one tree capturing 0.01355843 tons CO2 per year during its growth, and planting 180 trees per year starting from 2020 (based on your 15 trees/month).

                              The blue line is all the CO2 captured in the trees (under the assumption that they grow for 25 years and never get burned down). The green line is my CO2 footprint since birth minus the CO2 from the trees. As you can see there is a ramp up from my birth year until 2020 when the tree planting starts. The captured CO2 from the trees ramps up slowly until 25 years later in 2045 there is a steady growth because the # of growing trees plateaus. At that time I'd be sitting at 4500 growing trees however, which capture around 60 tons of CO2 through their growth that year. Much more than my CO2 footprint.

                                @Jakob-Y#169386 How nice. I've never looked at it that way. Such a nice perspective, thanks for the graph, it helps a lot too.

                                  Of course, depending on your individual numbers it might take a lot more time to reach "CO2 equilibrium". The numbers and circumstances I've chosen (7 tons per year new CO2, planting 180 trees every year, trees all growing fine for 25 years and never getting destroyed) are a bit ideal. I'll play around with this a bit more after work, if there's something interesting I'll share it with you.

                                    @Jakob-Y#169386 Amazing work! Great idea to try and make up for CO2 of your lifetime from birth. I’m gonna take a further look at this to calculate my trees target as well 😀

                                    I hope Madagaskar will be big enough for all those trees if everyone starts planting thousands.

                                      Hi everyone 👋

                                      It's so nice to see you all care about our planet 🌎
                                      As @TwitNour#169387 explained earlier, we've created a topic explaining the math behind SuperGreen
                                      This calculation is based on an average, it means that some people will need less trees than others to offset their carbon footprint and that's a great news 🙌
                                      We've recently shared with you an article to find out your carbon footprint, you can find it here if you want to go further and want to know how many trees you might need personally.

                                      We are sure that, together, we can accomplish great things 🌎🤝

                                      Cheers,

                                      bunq