Carbon Offsets

Community Friends has a unique carbon offset program that helps alleviate poverty while promoting sustainable land stewardship. Our program includes both carbon sequestration through reforestation and promotion of lifestyle shifts away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources such as eco-friendly micro-hydro power generation.

Our pilot project in Sri Lanka’s high-elevation tea country helped install a micro-hydro power generator, which utilizes the abundant water flow in this mountainous region. As a result, the village has eliminated the use of burning kerosene electricity. This provides clean power to the village and frees workers to focus on important tasks rather than constantly struggling to obtain kerosene from far away town centers.

Another project underway in Sri Lanka is the planting of 10,000 trees on land acquired by Community Friends in tandem with our local partner. We have partnered with the local university to design a sustainable reforestation project including many varieties of trees, understory plants and ground covers, which promote soil, water, and biodiversity improvements on the land. We are applying agro-forestry principles to the selection of tree and plant species, opting for fruit bearing trees such as Jack, Mango, and Avocado, which provide for nutritional and medicinal improvements to the community as well as economic stimulation.

We have also established a mi tree nursery in a rural Sri Lankan village. Mi trees were once an important part of rice cultivation because the mi tree fruit attracts bats, which fertilize the rice crops. With the introduction of chemical fertilizers, farmers were told they could cut down the mi trees and soon farmers were dependent on the chemicals. Now we are reintroducing mi trees to farmers and educating them on the value of natural fertilizer. To make sure that the new trees we plant are not cut down, we are including farmers in a profit sharing of the carbon offset revenue.