A Starbucks 'Pumpkin Spice Latte' or plant 50 Trees?

Online, you will see many pro-environmental people who also enjoy Starbucks coffee. Those people will talk about how everyone needs to give up luxuries to save the planet.

The biggest stereotype is that Starbucks customers love Pumpkin Spice Latte’s. A “coffee” drink that costs £4.25. A drink costing the equivalent of nearly 30 minutes of work at the UK “Living Wage” of £8.91 an hour.

Such an expensive drink is a luxury. Something you would think that pro-environmental would want avoided if not banned by governments.

A Real Pro-Environmental Use Of £4.25

At the moment the Trillion Tree Campaign has two planting sites run by the Eden Reforestation Projects listed at planting trees for £0.09 each. That means your £4.25 could plant 50 trees in Madagascar or Kenya.

As (at least) in the long term you are looking at around 10 KG per tree of CO2 sequestered. If we presume a 80% survival rate that would 8KG per tree a year or 400KG CO2 sequestered yearly.

And even better, that is the average per year for the next 15 to 25 or more years.

Even better, the two projects I linked to focus on planting Mangrove forests which store a lot of their Carbon in the soil. Meaning when the Mangrove trees you paid for die, most of the carbon will remain “locked in”.

Published: 13th April 2021