A South African eye care company working in liaison with a conservation non-governmental organization has jumped onto the climate change band wagon and is now spearheading an innovative way of controlling carbon emissions.

Spec Savers South Africa, well known for the manufacture of spectacles, is involved in planting spekboom and other indigenous trees at selected centers in the Eastern Cape, one of South Africa's nine provinces, following on the success of its national "Climate Eyes campaigns."

The initial campaign was an initiative of Spec Savers South Africa chief executive Bryan Dowley and the Wilderness Foundation. Spec Savers SA undertook to plant a spekboom truncheon in the Bav iaanskloof, a section of the Eastern Cape, for every pair of variable tint spectacles sold at any of the company's 232 stores throughout South Africa.

The company has further committed to planting a minimum of 5,000 truncheons a month. So far, about 6.000 truncheons have been planted in the Baviaanskloof area. This area was selected because there is already a spekboom farming program under way already.

Funded by the Water Affairs Department, the program is aimed at rejuvenating degraded land and combating climate change. Spekboom is the dominant plant in the dense, spiny succulent thicket indigenous to the Eastern Cape – and it has been found to have excellent carbon sequestering capability.

Recently, a team from the company and the foundation (Wilderness), assisted by pupils from a school in Port Elizabeth, the capital of the Eastern Cape province, planted 100 spekboom at the Eastern Province Child and Youth Center. The center is also the home of the foundation's Umzi Wethu (Our Home) program to help Aids orphans.

Besides transforming this center into a leading institute against climate change, the aim is also to green the grounds for the enjoyment of the youngsters who live there, says Spec Savers SA spokesperson Rosa Maartens.

The same team will plant over 200 truncheons and other indigenous trees at the center over the next three months.

The challenge has been put to Spec Savers SA branches countrywide to identify a school or orphanage to work with in this way. In an interview with Xinhua this week, Maartens says: "While we have a team that goes out each month to do the work in the Baviaanskloof, this is a way of getting staff directly involved, for them to grab a trowel and make a difference. International companies are also keen on our spekboom."

Nollen Group carbon markets head Hy Martin, an American-based in Cape Town, says the group (which has offices in the US, the Netherlands, Thailand, Cambodia and Cape Town), is very excited about the potential of its 9-million rand Somerset East (a small town in the Eastern Cape) spekboom farming investment, and the possibility expanding it to other depressed areas in the Eastern Cape.

"We put the first spekboom into the ground about two weeks ago and in about six months ' time we will be able to sell the first carbon credits through the American agency we are working with. Our aim is a sustainable venture for us as a company and then also for local communities," said Martin in an interview with Xinhua on Saturday.

The spekboom starts to sequester carbon as soon as it is in the ground, but its capability grows as it matures until it peaks at about 50 years old, says Martin. Even after that it does not lose its value as it generates new plants before it dies. Carbon trading allows governments or companies typically in the developed world to offset their carbon dioxide emissions by buying carbon credits, typically from projects in the developing world.

Land owners can earn money by partnering in the investment and thereby eventually earning dividends from the sale of carbon credits, or more quickly, but not so profitably long term, by renting their land to the investor.

There is a lot of "energy and appetite" in the international carbon trading community for this kind of venture, says Martin. East London, the fifth largest city in South Africa, also in the Eastern Cape, will be the center for the manufacturing of the first electric car in South Africa if not the whole of the African continent.

The car will be called the Joule and its manufacturing will commence next year. This is to completely eradicate the carbon emissions from vehicles.