The Expedition’s Environmental Policy
One of the attractions of visiting the Arctic is that it remains one of the last few pristine environments on the planet. To play a part in destroying that environment in the process of visiting it would be appalling. That is why a major goal of The Carpe Diem Polar Challenge is to have a minimum impact on the environment throughout the period of the expedition. We will aim to be not just carbon neutral, but 'carbon negative' by offsetting at least twice as much carbon dioxide as is produced by our flights to and from Canada through a reputable offset program, planting native trees in the United Kingdom. We will ensure that we leave absolutely no litter during the expedition itself – ‘take only photographs, leave only footprints’. We shall also be taking advice from experts on the Polar region to ensure that, as much as possible, our presence and activity there has the least possible impact on the environment and native wildlife.
Carbon Offsetting
We have done some research into carbon offsetting, and have chosen a UK based not-for-profit organisation called Growaforest. No one draws a salary, and they plant native broadleafed trees in diverse forestry projects in Lancashire. Visit their website:
The Concept of being 'Carbon Negative'
Going Carbon Neutral is all the rage these days. Businesses are doing it. Politicians are doing it. Even individual households are doing it. There are various ways, the most immediate being to actually cut down on your carbon emissions as much as possible. But for those emissions that are unavoidable (or for which your green credentials aren't enough to justify the sacrifice!), the trend is to 'offset' your emissions in some way, the most popular of which is tree planting. Rather than rolling up your sleeves and putting your wellies on, most companies and individuals do this through third party organisations. The practice has come in for some criticism: mostly as a result of poor schemes that actually clear rainforest in South America in order to plant monoculture forests such as eucalyptus; and partly because tree planting is only a temporary way of sequestering carbon (when the tree dies and rots, the carbon is released - unless of course the wood is harvested and made into something durable!). That is why our Polar expedition will invest in broad leafed native trees in the UK, planted by a reputable not-for-profit organisation.
However we feel that rather than simply offsetting our carbon emissions, we should go further. We will offset at least twice the amount of carbon dioxide that our expedition will generate, most of which will be produced by our return flights to Canada. This concept of being 'Carbon Negative' rather than simply carbon neutral is one that does not seem to have caught people's imagination as much as it should. It is a concept that we will use the expedition to publicise, although not fanatically. If everyone who currently tries to minimise their impact on the environment adopted this approach, then they would offset their own carbon emissions - plus those of the philistine in the next plane seat too! In time, if everyone adopted this philosophy, then we collectively will be moving in the right direction considerably faster, and at a reasonable individual cost. We would like to see not only individuals seeking to be carbon negative, but companies and organisations too. Perhaps it is too much to expect large companies to offset twice their carbon dioxide emissions, but if responsible companies make the effort to offset their emissions plus 10% say - then that will quickly build up to significant levels of CO2 sequestering. So - go carbon negative!
