Trees have played an important role in regulating the climate of the Earth over the past several hundred million years. Besides producing oxygen that is essential for us, they extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Planting trees is therefore a logical action not only as a solution to reduce carbon dioxide, but also because destroying and clearcutting rainforests or forests in general have become a major problem that in the end turns carbon dioxide absorbing areas into carbon dioxide releasing areas. Hungarian Gas Storage Ltd is dedicated to slowing this process through a conscious plant-a-tree program, during which Company employees planted trees around each natural gas storage facility and the headquarters in Budapest.
About 150 emerald trees were planted altogether in the vicinity of the natural gas storage sites. Emerald trees resist extreme weather conditions, they grow fast and can absorb more carbon dioxide than any other deciduous trees. One hectare of emerald tree plantation – of about 500 trees – can absorb 100 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Therefore, the trees planted by HGS will absorb about 30 tons of CO2 each year topped up by about 5 tons of CO2 in Budapest, capturing 35 tons/year in total.
This amount equals to the CO2 emission of about 10-12 cars used by HGS.
HGS aims at raising environmental awareness and promoting tree planting that helps capture carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, slows down the climate change and last but not least improves wellbeing in general.