Published on 22/02/2021

At night, in the woods near Puerto Lopez, in the heart of Colombia, when the parrots stop screeching, the pumas hunt silently in the undergrowth and the monkeys take a nap in the lush crowns above, you can hear the breath and heartbeat of the trees. 

You can place a stethoscope on the stem of a young tanimbuca, a guanandi tree, a fragrant eucalyptus or a pine tree and you can hear how they pump water from the roots into the branches, the treetops, the leaves and exhale it, sprinkling the whole forest with a fine mist in the morning. 

Millions of newly planted trees in Colombia, Argentina, Mali and China pulse to this same rhythm. All of them contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the Novartis global industrial and commercial operations.

The idea to plant massive forests dates back to the early years of the Millennium, when Novartis joined the United Nations Global Compact, an international initiative designed to spur corporate efforts to increase environmental protection and social responsibility.

Amid a series of measures to manage its carbon footprint, the company also decided to invest in carbon sinks and develop its own large forestry projects around the world in which it has since planted some 15 million trees. These have helped Novartis offset around 6 percent of the carbon emissions from its operations each year over the last 10years.

Natural and financial viability

The man steering the massive efforts over this period was Markus Lehni, who joined Novartis in 2005 as Group Global Head Environment and Energy. 

He and his team did not simply want to grow carbon sinks. Their goal was to design and develop forestry projects that were in line with the best environmental and social practices, while at the same time advancing forestry ventures that are economically sustainable over the long term.

“Our goal was to create projects that would help us reduce our carbon footprint, while at the same time improving the environmental value of the sites, giving local communities the possibility to benefit from these forests and make the projects financially viable,” Lehni said. “This was, however, far from easy. Looking back over the past years, we have made good progress, but also had a lot of lessons learned, especially regarding the financial sustainability of our ventures.”

Learn more about environmental action at Novartis here!

Tumbling timber 

A steep learning curve came with the first and to date most mature project, which was launched in 2006 and centered on the 3400-hectare estate of Santo Domingo in the subtropical northeast of Argentina. 

Working together with the local forestry operator Grupo Manejo Forestal, Lehni’s team and local counterparts steered the plantation of thousands of pine trees, yellow jacarandas and Australian silver oaks, among more than a dozen of native tree species from local natural forests. 

Besides helping sequester the bulk of the CO2 output produced by Novartis so far, the farm, which today employs 20 people, is already selling timber from selective thinning and considers harvesting pine resin in future to sustain itself economically. The diverse forest stands also allow a variety of mammals such as big game, pumas and capybaras as well as many reptiles and birds to find a new habitat, connecting native forest islands with equally attractive passageways. 

But while the Santo Domingo forest has made a substantial contribution to the efforts of Novartis to balance its greenhouse gas emissions, the project so far was unable to live up to its long-term financial goals, mainly because of Argentina’s current difficult economic situation. 

“The price of timber is currently at rock bottom,” Lehni explained. “Harvesting costs as much as the timber brings in income. However, despite the currently adverse market environment, we are confident that Santo Domingo will be able to better balance its accounts in the foreseeable future and continue to further grow its carbon stock with a diverse and rich forest environment.”

Jeopardizing Jatropha

Lehni’s team also encountered challenges in Mali, where they launched an agroforestry project to cultivate Jatropha trees in 2007. 

While the initial idea was to sequester CO2 with these robust bushes, the team also envisaged that the oily Jatropha fruits can be collected and used for the production of biofuel, soap and bio-fertilizer, providing an additional income to the rural smallholder communities owning the bushes.

However, pure Jatropha plantations failed to live up to the high expectations because the plant is difficult to cultivate in arid conditions, Lehni explained. Its need of sufficient water to survive and grow and its erratic yields jeopardized the project.

“After we ran into challenges with Jatropha, the local partners broadened the scope of the project, included edible crops and other fruit trees, including cashew trees,” Lehni said.

The 10- to 12-meter-high cashew trees are relatively undemanding and have been around in Africa since the 16th century, when the Portuguese imported it from Brazil. “The share of West African cashew nuts on the world market is the third-largest after Vietnam and India,” Lehni clarified, “so we recently switched from pure Jatropha to a mixed plantation with cashew and food crops. Jatropha now, as in the past, is being used as an erosion shield.”

Thanks to this U-turn, the project, which directly employs some 40 staff in rural Mali, not only helps absorb CO2, but is also set to provide additional income to thousands of smallholders, who will be able to sell both cashews and Jatropha nuts in the future.

In China, meanwhile, where Novartis started a collaboration with the Sichuan Forest Administration in 2010 centering on a massive reforestation project in the southwest of the province, the team faced another type of natural hurdles.

Although the project was off to a great start with more than 9 million trees being planted in record time, the harsh climate dented expectations as the low temperatures on the steep mountainsides of Sichuan curbed the growth of the trees. Furthermore, damage caused by herding animals added to the challenges.

However, Lehni is optimistic that the project will ultimately reach its goals. “We have learned our lessons in China. But I’m sure that the project in Sichuan will be able to contribute to our carbon-neutral goals, even if it takes more time than originally expected. Furthermore, as the Sichuan project is engaging many local stakeholders, it has already received high recognition as a pioneering private sector engagement in this region.”

Sweet success

Meanwhile, in Colombia, on the Hacienda El Manantial, the most recent forestry project of Novartis, which was launched in 2014, success came in a sweet and expected way. 

Both the carbon sequestration and efforts to make the project financially viable were spurred by taking innovative approaches. Regarding efforts to bind as much carbon as possible, the operating company Carbon Decisions International decided to plant a mix of exotic and domestic species, which help bind carbon quickly and enrich the local native woods.

“It is known that exotic species such as acacia, eucalyptus, pine and rubber generally grow much faster than native species and quickly remove larger amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” explained Lucio Pedroni, who heads the project implementation of El Manantial in Colombia. “This is why we planted a large number of exotic trees first.”

However, Pedroni is also cultivating indigenous species. “After six years of planting numerous types of indigenous trees, it is gradually becoming clear which species have an interesting commercial as well as carbon sequestration potential. These will be our focus species for expansion and for future projects,” he added.

Besides the forthcoming sale of timber and seedlings, another attractive income source is honey, which is collected from 300 million bees buzzing in the forest. In 2019, some 35 tons were harvested and sold. In a few years, the operating company also expects to start harvesting and selling latex from the rubber tree plantations.

Sound of success

Meanwhile, the forest of El Manantial has also become a paradise for rare animal species. Video and photo traps show pumas, mountain lions, ocelots, tapirs, capybaras, giant armadillos and a huge number of monkeys. The treetops provide nesting sites for curassows, chachalacas, guans, falcons, parrots and eagles. Large anacondas, rattlesnakes and caimans have also been sighted, as have electric eels, piranhas and stingray fish in rivers and streams.

“Being in the forest of El Manantial, hearing the sound of the animals and feeling the pulse of the forest itself, is a great experience per se,” Markus Lehni recalled a recent visit. “But the greatest thing is that the project is beginning to pay off. We are offsetting carbon emissions, provide a livelihood to the local community and can balance the finances through the sale of timber and other products from the forest.”

All in all, despite the many challenges, Lehni and all being involved in the program are proud of what the company has achieved since it launched its first forest project back in 2006. “After almost 15 years, one can safely say that the overall balance of the four reforestation projects is highly positive. If everything goes according to plan, the four programs will enable us to offset a total of about 1.2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 or between 60 000 and 80 000 tons every year during the next decade, which corresponds to up to 10 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions of Novartis today.”