Glastonbury Idea Helps Global Warming

We suspect you could count the number of successful global businesses conceived at Glastonbury on the fingers of one hand. But this year, Future Forests is, however you look at it, a major player. No ordinary business either: it plants carbon dioxide-eating trees to offset the carbon dioxide produced by, well, just about everything that is man-made. Following the Kyoto Global Warming conference, carbon dioxide emission has become a hot topic around the world: by 2008, governments have pledged to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 5.6 per cent. And Future Forests can help companies - which governments will soon start fining if they emit too much carbon dioxide -- eat up as much carbon dioxide as they create.

Future Forests genial chairman Dan Morrell is happy to be back at Glastonbury: "Joe Strummer is a dear friend and six years ago, we were all sitting around the fire [backstage behind the Pyramid Stage] thinking about all the pollution of all the vehicles, bands and stages and how much greenhouse gases it created. We thought: "Let's plant a forest and reabsorb it". And here we are six years later. We've planted 2.5 million trees and got 45 million records involved in the project." According to Morrell, the music industry is taking the lead when it comes to carbon-neutrality: "MTV and the Brits are carbon-neutral, as are Coldplay, The Foo Fighters Dido, Sting, Afrika Bambaata, Eminem, Misteeq and The Beastie Boys. Two years ago, we did about 200,000 carbon-neutral CDs. A CD in its distribution creates about 1Kg of carbon dioxide which goes into the atmosphere. Last year we did 7 million CDs and this year we're on track for 45 million CDs with our branding on. So the objective for Future Forests is to get the music industry to be the first industry on the planet that has a zero climate-change impact." Glastonbury 2002 is well on the way to becoming carbon-neutral: "We need 2,200 trees to plant - we've got a forest outside Exeter to plant them in - and as of Friday night we had already sold 1,100." Future Forests' scientists have worked out exactly how many trees will offset just about every carbon dioxide-producing activity so, for example, 15 trees a year equals a carbon-neutral citizen; an average household equals 8 trees a year; an Australia flight would be six trees; a family holiday about 4 trees; and a year's driving equals five. So how much does it cost to get carbon-neutral? Morrell says: "There's a special festival price of £5 because you don't have to post out a map and a certificate. Normally it costs £7, and for that, you get one tree having reached maturity. To get one tree to reach maturity, we might plant maybe 15-20 saplings." Morrell admits that: "You can't plant enough trees to deal with global warming; it's too big a problem," but says that Future Forests' remit goes beyond just trees: "We want to switch people to renewable energy, start getting them to car-pool, turn their computers off at night when they leave the office and to recycle. The tree is the icon. When you buy a tree, you get information like the telly uses nearly as much energy when it's on standby as it does when it's on, so when you've finished watching it, switch it off. Another really good one that I found out a few weeks back is that mobile phone chargers use about 1 per cent of the electricity in the UK. So when you've finished charging your phone, unplug it." You heard the man: could save you money on your electricity bills, too. Morrell has a final coup which he's keen to share: Future Forests is poised to render the forthcoming Johannesburg World earth Conference carbon neutral: "We wrote to the UN and said how can you possibly have a conference on global warming at which you're creating 500,000 tons of pollution? And they went: "Yeah, OK, let's do it."" Just goes to show that having a good old natter around a Glasto campfire really can have a lasting impact on the Earth's environment. Words: Steve Boxer