Two thousand red pine trees will be planted at Base Borden by summer 2022 to offset carbon emissions generated by this year’s Borden Canadian Armed Forces Day & Air Show.
Borden’s own Real Property Operations (RP Ops) Natural Resource staff and volunteers managed the planting. These efforts are in line with the Government of Canada’s efforts to reduce emissions, and Borden’s commitment to hosting a carbon-neutral event.
A single red pine tree, at maturity (14.5 years), will help filter 180 kg of CO2 from the air we breathe.
Why red pine?
Base Borden was originally barren farmland, but the sandy soil made it difficult. The land was reallocated to military training and Camp Borden was born. Red pine, a coniferous tree, is native to the area, and thrives in this type of soil.
Why 2,000 trees?
The carbon emissions of the Air Show have been carefully calculated based on each individual aircraft and fuel requirements for the length of time each one will be in flight – down to the minute! We also factored in the generators needed to support the vendors on site for the weekend, and the estimated number of vehicles for the nearly 20,000 spectators expected to attend the event.
And then we doubled it.
That’s right, to make sure that any margins of error were more than covered, we doubled the number of trees required to sufficiently offset emissions.
Where do Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions come from*?
- 26% Oil and gas
- 25% Transportation
- 13% Buildings
- 11% Heavy industry
- 10% Agriculture
- 8.8% Electricity
- 6.2% Waste & Others
(*Source: Government of Canada website)
By: Emily Nakeff, Editor
