About

‘Carbon offsetting’ refers to projects that are accredited by an external agency such as Gold Standard or Verra. ‘Carbon balancing’ refers to projects that are not accredited by an external body, but might still be externally evaluated. Temwa Carbon Balance is validated by independent external evaluators, and we are working towards Gold Standard accreditation.

Many carbon offset services are offered by commercial businesses, offering accredited services but without much information on how projects are run. This makes the service anonymous and hard to trust, with no clear idea of where your money is going, apart from the knowledge that some of it is funding company profits.

Building on lessons from the industry, Temwa Carbon Balance aims to do things differently. We’re a charity, so we don’t make profits - and our community-to-community approach means you can see the difference you are making.

Firstly, Temwa Carbon Balance is rooted in our community-led approach, and it’s about people as well as carbon. Our experience over the last two decades gives us a deep understanding of how to empower and mobilise remote communities in sustainable farming and forestry. We've supported communities to plant over 1.5 million trees and protect their natural resources - supporting people who rely on the soil and trees to help grow crops, reduce flooding and support a flourishing eco-system.

Secondly, Temwa Carbon Balance is transparent. We will connect you to the communities you support – community to community carbon balancing. You will receive regular news on the progress of the project and on life in the communities supported, so that you can see how your money is spent and understand the impact that your investment has.

Our carbon balancing project works with individual farming households, to measure the carbon held in the trees and soil on their land, then track the changes that our project creates. We use monitoring visits, including film and photography, to record these changes. We also commission independent evaluations to inform and improve our work.

Yes, it’s better to reduce emissions than to plant trees. But it’s even better to reduce emissions and plant trees. CO2 in the atmosphere will fall faster, and people and wildlife will benefit from the trees.

Northern Malawi is one of the poorest regions in the world. The area we serve has an average household income of $150 a year and 40% of families are unable to access enough food all year around. 2.6% of forest cover is lost annually as people struggle to provide heat for cooking and timber for building. Our mission is to help communities to become self-reliant, building sustainable ways of living in this beautiful and abundant landscape.

All our projects are based in Northern Malawi. We work with remote communities on the shores of Lake Malawi, around Usisya, and in the surrounding uplands. Our tree planting activities are planned with local communities to meet their needs, which vary across the region. As this project moves forward we will map tree planting and make regular monitoring visits to ensure the health and longevity of the trees.

Trees are planted by farmers who Temwa has worked with over many years. They are directly involved in decisions around tree planting. They are supported by Temwa and local forestry experts, who draw on knowledge of trees and local conditions built up of many generations. This helps ensure that the trees are protected and nurtured.

Temwa's ‘community-led’ approach has been developed over decades of practice in northern Malawi. Our Malawi office is run by Malawian nationals who are trained and experienced in community facilitation. We bring together the entire community: from local leaders to the poorest and most marginalised people, to jointly identify the problems that affect their lives - and then to plan strategies for how to address them. This leads to a Village Development Plan which the entire village signs up to support. 

Only when a village has come together to design a plan that incorporates the needs and views of the entire community do we agree to help. This ensures that we only plant trees where people see the need for them and have a plan for looking after them.

We will plant a minimum of ten trees to balance each tonne of CO2. We use the Gold Standard’s Fairtrade Forest Management minimum price, currently set at 14 Euros per ton CO2. So we will plant at least one tree for around £1.25.

Our donation doesn’t just pay for tree planting. We also support local communities in developing sustainable agricultural practices which build soil depth and quality, increasing crop yields and resilience. This captures more carbon, builds food security and develops sustainable incomes. Alongside this we support local governance structures to protect forests and spread good practice in sustainable forestry management. This ensures the trees you plant stay in the ground.

We plant a range of trees for different purposes. For agroforestry projects, we plant indigenous trees that have food or medicinal uses, or which capture nitrogen and fix it in the soil. In restoring forest areas, we also use appropriate indigenous species. Where we are supporting communities to move away from felling existing forests for fuel and timber, we plant faster-growing softwood species.

The tree planting season in Malawi runs from late August to February. Seedlings are cultivated in the Temwa tree nurseries, then distributed to individual farmers to be planted through the planting season. So your payment will fund tree planting in the next winter season.

Our community-led approach means that we plant trees where they will directly benefit the people who live around them. Benefits include reduced erosion, flooding and droughts, improved soil fertility and better yields of food crops and medicinal products. This means that local communities have a vested interest in protecting and nurturing the trees as part of their own landscape management.

Land ownership in Malawi is very different to the UK. In the area where we work, land is owned by traditional chiefs. However, they are seen more as custodians of the land, and it is unusual and sometimes impossible for the land to be bought and sold. The communities who live and farm on the land don’t pay rent; they use the land by custom, often based on long family histories. 

In practice, land use is managed through two structures. Firstly, the traditional structure of chiefs and village headmen; secondly, the community governance structures, consisting of Area Development Committees and Village Development Committees.

Temwa works with both these structures, building relationships with chiefs and supporting good planning and governance with the committees.

All soil contains organic matter in various stages of decay, and this ‘soil organic carbon’ is the basis of soil fertility. The richest soils can contain up to 10% soil organic carbon, whereas poor and depleted can be as low as 1% soil organic carbon. 

Soil organic carbon is formed of plant or animal matter. This could be leaves and twigs falling naturally to the ground from trees or other plants, or it could be deliberately added as compost or manure. High levels of soil organic carbon are extremely beneficial for growing food. Crop yields are increased; moisture is retained in dry weather; and floodwater drains more rapidly in wet weather. This increased fertility also makes it possible to farm using less chemical fertilizers. 

Increasing soil depth and quality is therefore a win-win, with the potential to sequester huge quantities of carbon while also improving crop yields and climate resilience for local communities.

Our project improves soil depth and quality in three ways. Firstly, we support farmers in adopting sustainable agriculture practices, particularly around composting. Good quality compost builds soil organic carbon and reduces dependence on artificial fertilizers.

Secondly, tree-planting helps reduce soil erosion. ‘Contour planting’ creates lines of trees across hillsides, reducing run-off to protect soil. Boundary planting divides plots of land with rows of trees to create beds that can be composted to build soil. And tree-planting along streams and rivers protects banks and reduces soil erosion in the wet season.

Thirdly, we use tree-planting to improve soil directly. Some indigenous tree species can pull nitrogen from the air and store it around their root systems, adding to the fertility of the soil. And all deciduous trees will naturally add compost to the soil in the form of leaf-mould. Agroforestry projects, in which crops are grown between and among trees, take advantage of these natural processes. For a good example of this, see this UN report on maize agroforestry using African acacia trees.

After you make a payment towards our project, we will provide regular updates including photos and monitoring information. We will also commission regular independent evaluation of our work, which we will share with our supporters.

Trees take carbon dioxide from the air and use the carbon as a building block for growth, releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. In forming a tonne of timber, trees take 3.67 tonnes of CO2 from the air. A large mature tree with a trunk a metre across could contain four tonnes of carbon, and would have taken 14.68 tonnes of CO2 from the air as it grew.

However, trees take a long time to reach that size and face all kinds of hazards as they grow. We plant a minimum of ten trees to balance one tonne of CO2, aiming to sequester the carbon in the first 20 years of growth and allowing for some trees not to reach maturity.

We use the Gold Standard’s Fairtrade Forest Management minimum price, currently set at 14 Euros per tonne of CO2. The Gold Standard is an independent accreditation agency and they have a clear overview of the costs and practicalities of this type of project, so this provides a reputable benchmark.

It’s very difficult to calculate the exact carbon emissions from a single flight, as it depends on a wide range of factors: how full the plane is; the model of plane; time spent waiting to land; emissions from airport operations; ‘radiative forcing’; emissions from aircraft construction and fuel extraction – the list goes on... 

Our approach has been to look for a simple and transparent way to estimate carbon emissions from flying.  We have followed the calculations carried out by Carbon Independent, which are available at www.carbonindependent.org/22.html. Their methodology gives a single figure of 250kg carbon per hour flying, which is an overall average for all types of flight.

CO2 emissions from driving are based on fuel consumption: every litre of petrol burned releases 2.39kg of CO2, while every litre of diesel releases 2.62kg. However, fuel consumption varies very widely depending on the model of car, the driving conditions and how the car is driven. Driving style alone can change fuel consumption by up to 30%.

We have used a simplified method, based on the UK average fuel consumption for small, medium and large cars with either petrol or diesel engines. This gives a reasonably accurate figure quickly and easily.

Car and air travel were chosen because they make a major contribution to global emissions, compared to other forms of transport. Carbon emissions from  train journeys, for example, are very low - less than 10% of the per mile emissions for cars. A 1,000 mile train journey for one person costs approximately 29p to offset.

Our carbon calculator is specifically tailored to air and car travel, but you are very welcome to independently calculate your domestic or other emissions and balance these with Temwa. 

We can offer businesses a full carbon audit and develop Balanced Business packages based on the results.