Why we're doing this: Pecans & Sustainability

Dear Treehouse fam,

If you’re anything like me, you may have observed yourself spending more of your waking hours (and perhaps more of your would-be-sleeping hours) contemplating what’s happening with our planet. The news is bleak. And as a business owner, I ask myself regularly if, in the midst of all of this, we’re still doing what we set out to do – encourage conscious consumption through a more sustainable dairy alternative. 

There’s a lot that’s out of our control, but we gotta believe that the decisions we make in our daily lives do and can have an impact.  

For starters, we know that eliminating, or at least decreasing, meat and dairy consumption is one way to reduce our individual carbon footprint – a trend that is catching on at a pretty fast clip.

But because we like to ask the tough questions, why would any one of us go a step further and choose pecanmilk over all of the seemingly endless choices of plant-based milks on the market now?

Pecans are the only commercial tree nut native to the U.S., so they grow naturally here in the South and don’t involve carbon-emitting transoceanic voyages to get here like many nuts do.

But what else? 

That’s why I wanted to share with you some analysis that helps us better understand why pecanmilk is arguably the best of the plant-based milks. These are the findings recently published by an Argentinian researcher:

“The amount of carbon removed by pecan orchards worldwide from 2012 to 2022…would equal to:

• 5.3 to 6.6% of carbon dioxide emissions produced by terrestrial vehicles in the United States annually (emissions produced by road transportation: 4.486 kilograms of carbon dioxide per capita according to the International Energy Agency)
  
  
• 2.2 to 2.84% of carbon dioxide emissions emitted by coal mining annually worldwide.
  
  
• 0.94 to 1.2% of methane emissions emitted annually by cattle as well as other activities worldwide.”

Granted, it’s not a perfect science, but when you consider that the pecan – the humble pecan! – is but one plant in a vast sea (or land, as the case may be) of things on this Earth, these numbers are quite impressive.  

I hope that this is just one of the first of many discussions about the power of the pecan to make a positive impact on the planet. 

Mostly, I wanted to thank you and let you know about the impact you’re making. We're all in this together, and we’re grateful to be in this together with you. 

Bess

P.S. Next time you’re hanging out with your friends and the conversation turns toward the latest current events, we hope you’ll remember this. Also recommended: having some pecanmilk on hand to share to back up your knowledge. ;)