FUTURE FORESTS

Having started planting trees to reabsorb CO2 in 1988 for Maureen of the Castlecary pet shop in 1992 Dan founded a second company, Future Forests (later renamed The Carbon Neutral Company), to help businesses satisfy their growing desire to offset their environmental impact and ‘go green.’ His partner in this was marketing consultant Sue Welland, with the vital science around carbon sequestration being provided by Dr. Richard Tipper. Although many people still found some of the issues around climate change and carbon offsetting confusing, the idea of planting trees to help the environment, popularised by Dan, was a relatively easy one to understand and get behind. This effort was greatly helped by the prominent support of many musicians and artists, beginning with Joe Strummer of the Clash after a meeting with Dan at Glastonbury in 1995. Strummer instantly committed to becoming the world’s first carbon neutral citizen, and the spontaneous support of such a respected figure proved a tipping point. Artists such as The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Leonardo Di Caprio committed to becoming carbon neutral, eventually resulting in over 100 million CD’s being produced on a carbon neutral basis. The Sex Pistols commissioned the ‘Filthy Furious Forest’ to be planted on the verge of the M25 near the Ford Motor Company plant at Dagenham. Of course some forests faced challenges – the ‘Ronnie Wood’ did not survive its early years but was recently re-planted by Dan in an Argentine cloud forest.

There was also support from other parts of the creative world: for example film-maker Roland Emmerich made his film ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ carbon neutral, as did other film-makers such as Bernardo Bertolucci. Sir Ridley Scott planted enough trees to take his entire company, Ridley Scott Associates, carbon neutral. This momentum encouraged the world and eventually over 250 companies worked with Dan and his teams to develop carbon neutral initiatives, including the likes of Avis, HSBC and Mazda. The activities of the company have been credited with protecting hundreds of species and planting hundreds of millions of trees.

Damien Hirst went carbon-neutral and had a forest in the Scottish borders. Damien created a Blue Cage filled with CO2 canisters to symbolise dance work. He also made a unique firework as he said Dan would take off.

The Warhol Foundation worked with Dan to create the Andy Warhol wood in Florida. A unique artwork piece was put on sale through Virgin Megastores America, where people could buy a Warhol print by David Gamble and plant a tree in the Andy Warhol Wood. Virgin Megastores Took all 23 of the US stores carbon-neutral.

The Brits and the BAFTAs went carbon neutral. The BRITS British Television broadcast was the world’s first carbon neutral show, taking into account the CO2 created by the viewing audience.

The artist Jamie Reid created artwork for Dan. Nature Still Draws a Crowd.

United Nations took a conference on climate and forestry carbon neutral in 1999 and planted a forest in Chiapas Mexico with Daniel Morrell and Richard Tipper using the plan Vivo System. Dan addressed the General Assembly in full session in New York, unprepared and by accident. The Fast Company article below explains how this happened. This presentation helped develop the voluntary carbon trading process into compliant Carbon Trading. The UN carbon trading mechanism is a mirror of the voluntary system initiated by Dan.

http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/co2/fastcompany.htm

The United Nations has given balance eco-limited access to 30,000 indigenous youth groups around the world. We have already collected voices from 118 different countries and included these in a remix of the orbs track ‘fluffy clouds’.

Dan has been a regular attendee and speaker at the COP climate summits. CPO 18 in Doha was opened by Lord Nicholas Stern celebrating Dans’ first trees planted 1988 for Maureen of  the Castle Cary pet shop in Somerset. Last year the compliant carbon market turned over $200 billion. The voluntary market reach $1 billion.

Please see below link with Lord Stern opening the COP (conference of the parties)citing Dan’s trees.

Lord Nick Stern opening Doha COP 18 Qatar – Celebrating first Carbon Trade and Maureen’s Trees.