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AstraZeneca’s first AI-monitored tree-planting programme

Posted on December 7, 2023 by dishanth

The Republic of Kenya is focused on regenerative action as it builds towards a more sustainable future through tree-planting—rebuilding ecosystems to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We saw this in November 2023 where authorities granted a national holiday for the purpose of planting 100 million trees across the country, which will play a major role in regenerating its land, but also encouraging its people to take ownership of climate change.

In fact, tree planting is perhaps one of the most selfless ways to reduce climate change, by taking accountability as a nation rather than pinpointing global warming on a specific group. Implementing ways in which the population can contribute is one of the most impactful steps that gets everyone moving.

The role of AI in regenerative projects

AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical research company, is also taking on such a challenge, only technology will be instrumental in its results. At this year’s COP28 in Dubai, the organisation uncovered its latest strategy for global impact—a tree planting project that will be monitored by artificial intelligence (AI).

It’s called the AZ Forest programme andis a project in collaboration with experts at Earthbanc and the Green Planet Initiative 2050 Foundation, to cover 3,500 hectares of land across six counties of Kenya adjacent to the Rift Valley.

“The link between planetary and human health is clear. Investing in our natural world through tree planting and conservation, and limiting deforestation, are some of the most effective preventative health steps we can take,” says Juliette White, Vice President Global Sustainability, AstraZeneca. “By expanding AZ Forest to Kenya, we are progressing our commitment to deliver reforestation at scale, with a science-led approach that benefits both the environment and local communities.”

AI will play a major role in assessing the health of the plants as they establish themselves as major, carbon-sequestering organisms, which will increase biodiversity across the country. This requires a feed of data in the form of drone footage and satellite imagery to paint a full picture of the plants’ life cycle.

Also showing appreciation for the efforts of the three organisations, Her Excellency Rachel Ruto First Lady of the Republic of Kenya says: “Climate change affects us all and tackling it requires concerted action from governments, individuals, and business.

“We welcome AstraZeneca’s approach to reforestation: working with local communities to ensure economic benefits for people that match the positive impact on the planet. This initiative will contribute towards Kenya’s goal to plant 15 billion trees over the next decade.”

Particularly in tree-planting, AI can play a major role in analysis and monitoring data as they grow. So, why is it important to monitor a natural process? Firstly, we imagine this is to encourage a successful growing period for the trees—reporting the success of AstraZeneca’s overall commitment to planting 200 million trees across six continents by 2030.

“This land regeneration project in Kenya is a very exciting opportunity that we are pleased to support in collaboration with our partners,” says Tom Duncan, CEO, Earthbanc.

“Earthbanc is committed to bringing private sector climate finance to accelerate and scale reforestation to meet the challenge of climate change. The AZ Forest initiative brings significant co-benefits with its focus on circular bioeconomy, sustainable communities, ecosystem health and sustainable markets. We are looking forward to this project launch and demonstrating that we can all play a part in the global effort towards planetary regeneration.”

AstraZeneca’s global portfolio of regenerative projects

This project builds upon AstraZeneca’s efforts in Ghana and Rwanda—to name its African projects—as well as Australia, Indonesia, France, the UK, and the US.

Australia: A collaboration with Greening Australia and One Tree Planted has resulted in over four million trees being planted, aiming for a total of 25 million. This includes 260 types of native trees, aiding in the protection of vulnerable and endangered wildlife.

Indonesia: Working with One Tree Planted and Trees4Trees, the initiative has led to the planting of over three million trees. Additionally, in 2022, over 13,000 farmers participated in agroforestry activities.

Ghana: Through the “Living Lab” project, in collaboration with CBA, over three million trees have been planted to enhance ecological and community resilience.

France: At the Palace of Versailles, 450 rare oak trees, lost in the storms of 1990 and 1999, have been replanted. These oaks create habitats for various wildlife like butterflies, birds, and mammals, increasing biodiversity and rejuvenating the famous Versailles gardens.

UK: In partnership with Forestry England and Borders Forest Trust Scotland, over 470,000 trees have been planted in Scotland and England. These efforts are focused on developing high-quality woodlands, contributing to physical and mental health through additional green spaces.

US: In a joint effort with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, over 100,000 trees have been planted, restoring more than 100 km of riverside woodland areas.

Source Sustainability

Tentree restores oceans with sustainable clothing products

Posted on March 20, 2023March 27, 2023 by dishanth

Our oceans are in a detrimental state that could be rectified if action is taken to resurrect the natural life that lives beneath the surface.

Many conversations are happening around deforestation and the loss of biodiversity on the land, but life in the ocean is beyond what is imaginable by those who live on that land. It’s also known that coral reefs and other ocean organisms cease to support our climate if not cared for properly.

Talking of this thought process—the conversation around the environmental impact of land versus the sea—is the critical step to be taken by the sustainable garment producer, tentree.

Its mission is simple on paper, to motivate and encourage environmental stewardship through earth-first apparel. In fact, all tentree products are inspired by the natural environments that the company so desperately works to preserve. The uniqueness of the tentree journey comes from its strategy to plant ten trees for every garment purchased—the name of the brand being an incredible commitment to doing just that.

“Over the past decade, our goal has been to create a business that wasn’t content with just doing “less bad”, but rather, was focused on doing “more good”. For every product we sell, we plant trees all across the globe. We have planted over 100 million trees to date and we connect the customer at every step of the journey with the impact their own purchase has made,” says Derrick Emsley, tentree’s CEO and Co-Founder.

As a result, tentree is aiming for a significant milestone of one billion trees planted by the year 2030, which is currently on track, having planted 100 million of those already.

Planting trees is not enough to be sustainable.

Looking at the staggering figures the company has reached over the past 11 years of business, tentree is certainly likely to exceed its target for tree planting, which wasn’t enough of a challenge.

On the 7th March 2023, the company launched its latest initiative that will account for the outstanding 70% of the Earth’s coverage—its oceans.

Marking the latest range of clothing from the brand known to the consumer as the Ocean Collection, this product line will tackle a separate yet not-so-distant issue.

The strategy behind the Ocean Collection being to regenerate sea life alongside partners. These projects will include kelp planting, coral restoration, and mangroves.

Partnering with Ocean Wise, tentree will support the planting of bull, sugar and giant kelp off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. tentree’s support makes it possible for Ocean Wise to research best practices for ‘seaforestation’—a critical step in its goal to restore, cultivate and protect at least 5,000 ha of kelp globally.
Alongside Plant a Million Corals tentree is supporting coral reef restoration and protection. They’ll be supporting important habitats for fish species throughout Florida and the greater Caribbean ecosystem.
tentree will continue to plant mangrove trees across Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar and Brazil. Nearly 50% of the world’s mangrove forests have disappeared over the last 50 years, and these ecosystems are crucial carbon sinks and nursery grounds for key species.

“By expanding our tree-planting efforts into the ocean, we are able to support a critical ecosystem that supports an incredible number of animals, can serve as a massive carbon sink, and is, to-date, very under-funded due to the challenges of managing and monitoring underwater work,” says Emsley.

“At the same time, the upside and benefits of these projects is massive – no risk of forest fires, rapid growth cycles leading to continued carbon removal year after year, and byproducts that can be used in a variety of ways to reduce carbon emissions elsewhere (ie. bioplastic, animal feed, and more).”

How to make sustainable products and champion circularity.Understanding the mission of tentree it seems apt to delve deeper into what makes the company sustainable. Having spoken to Emsley on the topic, he divulges the company’s approach to circularity and how the sustainability mission has evolved over the years.

Tell us more about tentree’s USP and the journey it has taken as a result.

“At tentree, we view ourselves not as an apparel brand that plants trees, but rather, as a tree-planting company that sells apparel. That being said, we also make phenomenal clothing that aims to be the comfiest, softest, and most sustainable product you’ll ever own.

“Our clothes serve first, as a vehicle to help us fund our global reforestation efforts, second, to provide an individual with the opportunity to make a difference and “wear their impact”, and third, to push the fashion industry towards more sustainable practices through circularity programmes, net-zero ambitions, and more.”

How does tentree manage its own impact on the planet in the process of supporting that of consumers?

“We’ve approached the creation of tentree with some principles that we hold very close:

1. We plant trees.

2. We work to reduce the negative impact of any product we create as much as possible.

3. Anything we cannot reduce, we offset. For each of these principles, we have built a number of ways to verify & validate our efforts.

“When it comes to tree planting, our approach to monitoring, reporting, and verification has evolved dramatically over the past decade. Historically, we have been challenged to measure our impact globally but, in the past three years, have built a technology focused on solving for the challenges of managing, verifying, and monitoring large-scale global reforestation efforts – this system is called veritree.

“Regarding the sustainability of our product, we use only the most sustainable fibre options—such as TENCEL™ lyocell, organic cotton or REPREVE® recycled polyester. As a result of this, we are able to cut back on the waste water and emissions that are created by typical apparel manufacturing. We also launched our new take-back program called “Circularity by tentree” in 2022 that helps keep well-worn tentree clothing out of landfills. “Finally, we are also one of the top B-Corps globally in the apparel category and have shown significant improvement with each recertification.”

How does the Ocean Collection fit into tentree’s mission?

“Our mission at tentree has always been to make saving the planet simple. We do that, by giving everyone of our customers the ability to make an incredible impact through their purchase. What it means to make an impact continues to evolve every year and, with it, so too does our business.

“When we started tentree, our focus was solely on planting trees. At the time, we didn’t know what it meant to make clothing “sustainably”. Upon realising the need to manufacture our product using more sustainable materials, we quickly made this change. Our focus was now on making products that did less harm, while planting as many trees as possible.

“Last year, we launched a circularity program to make sure that the product we created could also be returned to ensure there was no waste. This led to another evolution. Creating products without waste, that does no harm, and plants as many trees as possible.”

Source Sustainability

Time capsules: the stories that Amazon trees can tell us

Posted on February 24, 2020 by dishanth

Dendrochronology (the study of tree rings) can tell us more about the life of a tree – which can help reduce climate change impacts through better land management.
Thicker rings tend to denote a year when conditions were good for growth, whereas thinner rings suggest a lean year of drought and competition with other trees.

Tropical forests are one of the world’s largest carbon stores and they help regulate the global climate. But they’re being erased at a terrifying rate. Deforestation claimed an area the size of Belgium in 2018. These habitats are often cleared to make way for palm oil plantations and grazing pasture for livestock. For most forests, destruction on this scale is a fairly modern phenomenon.

Tropical forest ecosystems tend to have very high biodiversity, but often in the places you’d least expect. Research has found that there is often more wildlife in areas where there is an ancient history of human activity.

So how have indigenous people in tropical forests nurtured biodiversity in tropical forests while still domesticating tree species, building cities and growing crops? New research published in Trends in Plant Science suggests that the answer may be written in the trees themselves.

Ancient time capsules

Over 50,000 years ago, people in Borneo managed tropical forest vegetation using fire. They burned the edge of advancing forests, and this targeted disturbance was enough to prevent a large number of tall tree species dominating. It allowed habitats to regenerate that were rich in wild food plants and attractive to the animals that people hunted.

Other traditional methods of forest management included opening the forest canopy by carefully selecting trees to cut down. The light that flooded to the forest floor could then encourage edible species such as wild yams to grow amid the regenerating vegetation. These practices are similar to the modern ideas of edible forests and agroforestry, which maintain relatively high biodiversity and retain soil carbon and nutrient stores. Much of this is lost upon conversion to industrial plantations or ranches.

Traditional forest management encouraged biodiversity, whereas modern methods erode it.
Image: Caeteno-Adrade et al./Trends in Plant Science

In the past, vast areas of the world’s tropical forests were managed by indigenous peoples in this way. Trees keep their own accounts of this history in their wood. It has always been thought that tropical trees have short lifespans, usually less than 400 years. But recent research shows that many tropical trees live for a very long time, and can preserve over 1,000 years of history in their timber.

You’re probably familiar with the idea that you can measure how old a tree is by counting the rings beneath its bark. One ring usually equates to one year, so dendrochronology (the study of tree rings) offers a fairly easy way to understand the life of a tree. Thicker rings tend to denote a year when conditions were good for growth – ample sunshine and water – whereas thinner rings suggest a lean year of drought and competition with other trees.

Many tropical trees don’t lay down annual rings, but in the new study dendrochronologists identified over 200 species that do. Typically wider rings reflect higher rainfall, but many trees put on a growth spurt if light intensity rises. These are called release events and can happen if trees around them are cut down, allowing more light to break through the canopy. Finding these markers helps researchers to recognise and date past episodes of forest clearance. In the Amazon, these records help scientists understand the enormous extent of pre-Columbian agriculture and forest management.

Researchers extract a core of wood to measure the tree’s rings and find out its age.
Image: Victor Caetano-Andrade

The rings also preserve evidence of changes in the climate through the different isotopes (types) of oxygen and carbon laid down in the wood. Carbon isotopes tend to reflect light availability and other factors that control photosynthesis, whereas oxygen isotopes help scientists track changes in a nearby water source and annual rainfall. Isotopic studies showed that the abandonment of Angkor Wat in the 14th century coincided with severe drought.

Forest histories can also emerge from new DNA studies. Heavily logged species go through what we call “genetic bottlenecks”, where part of the genetic material of a species is lost as many individuals die or are unable to reproduce and pass on their genes. This leads to restricted gene pools.

Researchers would expect to see the same patterns in species which were strongly affected by logging or fires started by people in the past. Genetics can also identify species that were spread by ancient people, like the Brazil nut.

Living tropical trees record within themselves a history of human activity and the forest’s response to it. The regeneration of forests after disruption by people in the past offers some hope for the future, but only if current rates of deforestation can be halted, allowing the lungs of our planet to regenerate.

Written by

Chris Hunt, Professor of Cultural Palaeoecology, Liverpool John Moores University

This article is published in collaboration with The Conversation.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.