The meeting last October, which brought together 185 cardinals and bishops from the pan-Amazonian region, decided to offset the CO2 emissions produced through the reforestation of the indigenous Selva de Matavén Reserve.
The intention was to hold a Synod that would genuinely put into practice the concept of integral ecology professed by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si'. Three months on from its conclusion, it can now be stated with certainty that the outcome went even further, because the Synod on the pan-Amazonian region, held from 6 to 27 October last year in the Vatican, was the first truly Impatto Zero Synod, thanks to its participation in the namesake project by LifeGate, which calculated the total emissions produced by the Synod over its three weeks, and then offset them in the form of forestry projects.
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Optimising resources, reducing consumption and the raw materials used was possible, and was achieved through the elimination of plastic and resource waste, the abandonment of paper invitations, and the decision to use only recycled paper sourced from certified supply chains.
What was not possible was eliminating entirely the CO2 released into the atmosphere by the travel of the 185 participants and by the activities required to run the meeting, which was calculated at 572,809 kilograms of CO2 equivalent, the unit of measurement indicating the Global warming potential of every action. Hence the idea, born from the pan-Amazonian Synod's absolute awareness of the urgency surrounding global warming: to "reimburse" the environment by giving back the oxygen consumed.
Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod, explained that "with this initiative we wished to express the attention given to the subject of the environment by the Holy Father and by all those who took part in the Synod, in the wake of the encyclical Laudato Si', which called for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This initiative was intended not only to discuss ecological conversion, but to consistently propose a concrete gesture."
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At this point LifeGate came into play, acting through the Impatto Zero project on three fronts: it reduced and offset the CO2 released into the atmosphere by the travel of participants and by the activities required to run the meeting. The "debt" created is offset through real, unique, quantifiable and verified carbon "credits", generated by forestry projects capable of balancing the emissions produced by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere.
The forestry project was identified in Colombia, in the Selva de Matavén indigenous reserve, which has a total area of 1,856,836 hectares. The reserve is located to the east of the high plain of the Colombian Orinoco region, in the transition belt between the Orinoco savannahs and the Amazonian forests, in the eastern part of the department of Vichada, in the municipality of Cumaribo. It consists of 16 sectors and a centre, corresponding to the 16 former indigenous reserves that were unified under "Resolution 037 of 2003 INCORA". The geographical location and morphology of the country mean that Colombia is one of the nations with the greatest water resources in the world; within the Selva de Matavén indigenous reserve alone, 78 sub-basins and numerous hydrographic basins have been identified.
Despite 9 per cent of Colombian territory being protected, in recent years a large part of the country's wetlands have disappeared due to river pollution, mining activities and deforestation, causing an impoverishment of ecosystems and an increase in species at risk of extinction. Recent national policies have in fact promoted development plans aimed at boosting oil and mineral extraction activities, thus causing a widespread increase in human impact on the environment.
The main objective of the project is to contribute to the sustainable environmental development of the Colombian Orinoco region through the conservation and restoration of forest habitats and their ecosystem services as factors for the sustainability of the territory, local communities, the climate and biodiversity. Furthermore, the project aims to improve the living conditions of indigenous communities, in particular children and young people in the region, who have no access to education, healthcare and employment.
These are, moreover, credits that have obtained REDD+ certification (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) and VCS (Voluntary Carbon Standard) from an internationally accredited body regulated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. "We are proud and honoured to have been chosen as a partner of the Synod – comments Enea Roveda, chief executive of the LifeGate group – to offset its emissions with our Impatto Zero project, since 2001 the world's first initiative for the voluntary implementation of the Kyoto Protocol."
The decision to make the Synod Impatto Zero is perfectly consistent with its content and with the reflections it invites, starting from its very name: "Amazonia: new paths for the Church and for an integral ecology". In the final document published on 27 October last year, a lengthy chapter was devoted precisely to ecological conversion, in which the Church launched an appeal to the international community, in particular on the need to drastically reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to climate change, and to protect access to drinking water as a basic human right; it even put forward the definition of a new sin, the ecological one, as an action or omission against God, against one's neighbour, the community and the environment.
