I was graced recently to have a sit down with some attendees of the 2016 World Economic Forum that took place this month in Saint-Moritz. The topic for the year was investing in sustainability or being a catalyst for conservation.

Some of the ideas and concepts that were brought up made me ponder (as I sometimes do) and remember some interesting facts that are often overlooked in the world. I have written about how much of an environmental impact our client base has made for the environment just in using our products for fertility. The thing is, there is so much more that is (or could) happen when the same principles that we use are applied across different industries.

One of the main topics of our day is climate change; man made or cyclical? I have often avoided stating my stance on this because it’s not something that I feel forwards any movement when someone disagrees. You either think it’s real… or it’s not. Well, it is real. Is it man made? Maybe not completely, but we are definitely not helping. Go ahead and choose your side… now is the time. Got it? Good. Now, this is going to take some common sense, so please read on if you are in that state of mind.

There are two major source points for excess carbon in our atmosphere, fossil fuels and tilled fallow fields. Let’s start with the first one, fossil fuels. If you are uneducated on how oil and gas came to be, then you should understand that oil and gas are the creation of hundreds of millions of years of decomposition of organic material. Once organic material (forests, animals, ferns, grasses) decompose they form lignin, then lignite, coal, separation then of oil and gas.

If you have learned anything about soil fertility by now it’s that more organic matter equals more available nitrogen and other nutrients as well as food for bacteria and so on. What is our motto? Don’t take something out if you aren’t putting something back in.

Now here we are, removing oil and gas and burning it and letting the released CO2 into the atmosphere. But wait? Shouldn’t we be able to capture that back with plant life? Yes… we should, but we are no longer a balanced ecosystem.

Deforestation for cropland and bad tillage practices make it impossible for the carbon in the atmosphere to make it back into the soil where it belongs. One of the reasons for this is that in heavily tilled and rotated croplands we are often exposing soil to the air and therefore it not being used as a carbon sink. Currently 40% of the Earths land is agricultural. 15% is cropland. If farmers were to use grasses in between crops or in the off-season, the resulting action looks something like this:

Grasses are the biggest carbon sink in the country. Carbon sinks are natural systems that suck up and store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to use in photosynthesis. Some of this carbon is transferred to soil as plants die and decompose.

Grasslands are incredible oxygen making machines.  A 25 square foot area will supply enough oxygen to support one person for a day.  A turf area 50′ x 50′ will produce enough oxygen to meet the daily needs of a family of four. Lawns sequester more carbon than it takes to maintain them. The dense canopy and fibrous root system in a lawn sequesters carbon so well, that it outweighs the carbon used for maintaining the grass by as much as seven-fold.

Grasses remove about 6 tons of carbon dioxide per acre per year from the atmosphere. Scientists have also found that recycling grass clippings on lawns will sequester even more carbon.

A university notes that lawns and sport turfs have a positive effect on the overall carbon footprint of a landscape. An average-sized home lawn in the United States has the potential to sequester 20.3 to 163.4 kg C/lawn/year.

Without grass, carbon sequestration processes won’t occur. Your carbon footprint will grow bigger. (opei reference)

As you can see, there is a direct correlation between the two, and the reality is that the petrochemical market is not doing anything to help this situation. Now I’d like you to know that I don’t believe this to be a “doom and gloom” scenario, but I do think it’s important to be educated and to pass on information to others that can be considered helpful when making choices in their lives.

As the years tick by on the career path that I’ve chosen, I have been blessed to see many of my theories become fact. Speculation has been my ally and assumptions have been my friend. At this point, I am speculating that we as a species of humans are waking up to a new reality. I believe that we could all use a little more of less.

One of the things I like and say often is, “Let’s apply the law of minimums.” This concept was originally applied to plant and crop growth, where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not increase plant growth. Only by increasing the amount of the limiting nutrient (the one most scarce in relation to “need”) was the growth of a plant or crop improved.

This principle can be summed up in the aphorism, “The availability of the most abundant nutrient in the soil is only as good as the availability of the least abundant nutrient in the soil.” Or, to put it more plainly, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Are there ways that this law can be applied to all parts of our life? Yes, without a doubt. When you start thinking this way, your everyday choices become a bit more interesting. If humans would adapt this level of thinking across the industrial world, I have no doubt that we could see an improvement in everything from water quality, to air quality, and to the overall quality of life for all of us out there just trying to be human.

As someone who has made the choice to make a difference for our planet (even it is as simple a change as using our products) I thank you. Every day we are being “catalysts for conservation.” We are making a difference in water and air quality. These are the messages I would love to see you pass on to your friends, family members, clients and even competitors. This sharing allows for duplicated actions and exponential results.

I wish you all a blessed holiday season and an amazing new year.