France is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050. It therefore undertakes not to emit more CO2 than it can absorb. To achieve this, all sectors must get involved. Individuals, but also companies. Some rely on carbon offsetting: that is, absorbing as much CO2 as we emit through reforestation programs. A practice that must be carried out well, because it is often accused of promoting greenwashing.
” The line that we are going to plant there, it will serve us both as shade and as food, so that means that there will be a large tree every 15 meters. You have to imagine. And below that. We are going to put what we call fodder plants, so plants that cows can eat and like to eat. »
At the Tremblay farm, southwest of Paris. Mathieu Girault, from the French Agroecology Society, faces a small group who have come to participate in the transformation of 80 hectares of meadow into pasture planted with trees and shrubs to adapt to global warming. He oversees the work: The idea is that we will put trees, shrubs and vines, which have no other vocation than to be eaten by the cows and therefore also to take over in the summer, when the meadow is grilled, we can have a supplement with the fodder trees that we are going to install. »
On their knees in the earth, dirty city clothes and painful hands, a dozen agents from the digital consulting company Nexton are therefore hard at work reforesting. And the exercise is not as simple as that for these office workers like Xavier, project manager at Nexton. “It’s the first time I’ve done this. Afterwards, I don’t see how today, we can’t be interested in this type of action, in the sense that we hear about global warming, we hear about environmental protection. And there, we have the possibility of doing this concrete action “, he says.
Plant smart to actually compensate
In addition to sending a team to confront the realities on the ground, Nexton, but also the public works group Eiffage and Mitsubishi, have paid nearly 50,000 euros this year to help the farm achieve this ecological transition. For these companies, this serves to offset part of their CO2 emissions. It is Mannaig de Kersauson, director of Oco, who organizes this reduction of their carbon footprint: “ Carbon offsetting is often – and rightly -, accused of being an element of greenwashing. ‘Cause we can’t say : “I’m doing everything like before, I emit a lot of greenhouse gases, and I’m not interested in the reductions I could make, because in the end, I compensate.” That’s not the dynamic. The dynamic is to implement all the solutions – when there is – to avoid certain emissions, to reduce everything we can. Nevertheless, there will always be greenhouse gas emissions that will be made, and if we want to aim for neutrality, we will have to compensate at one time or another. ! »
Trees absorb CO2. Planting them, as at the Tremblaye farm, therefore makes it possible to offset part of the companies’ carbon footprint. But avoiding and reducing their CO2 emissions upstream is indeed a condition sine qua non to be able to act effectively against climate change, according to scientists.