Planting new trees can help us fight the global boil. Greenery around a building can reduce air conditioning by 50%.

2023 was the hottest year since the pre-industrial period to date, and 2024 is well placed to surpass it. This May was the hottest May on record since records began in the mid-nineteenth century, according to Copernicus, the EU's monitoring program. The global average temperature of the last 12 months was the highest ever seen, with over 70 thousand deaths attributed to the heat.

The problem is particularly acute in cities, oppressed by the classic "heat islands", which push temperatures 2 to 5 C Miami, Los Angeles, Santiago de Chile, Melbourne, Dhaka, Freetojn and Athens aim to plant trees, create “pocket parks”, to counteract the effects of extreme heat on the human body. The most effective measure to cool cities, therefore, is to increase vegetation. Planting trees around a building can reduce the use of air conditioning by as much as 50%. It is proven that the taller the trees, the more they mitigate the heat island, providing shade and cooling through evapotranspiration. In Melbourne, where temperatures rose to 39 C C in March, the chief heat officer Krista Milne promoted the measure, adopted by the Municipality, to plant 3 thousand trees a year, with the aim of reducing the peaks by 4. Heat is the deadliest climate danger, it is a silent killer," explains Elissavet Bargianni, appointed chief heat officer of Athens last year.We are in what UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres called "the era of global boiling".

Sicily also suffers from global warming and the heat exceeds all records. In August 2021, in Syracuse were recorded 48.8 degrees centigrade, a temperature that in recent hours the meteor The heat and drought in 2024 resulted in a rationing of drinking water between 10% and 45% in many municipalities.

In this context, Sangaspano is committed to continue the project of planting 15,000 new saplings by 2027 in addition to the 25,000 plants it already grows in northern Sicily. With the last 600 avocado trees planted in July 2024, Sangaspano has already planted 6,100 new plants from 2020 to today. The goal has also been achieved thanks to the support of our customers who every year adopt a fruit tree and support us in this ambitious project.