Branka Simunovich is transforming the air we breathe. The 40,000 olive trees on her property, Simunovich Olive Estate, in Bombay, 40km south of Auckland, now sequester more carbon than the property produces. Technically, the estate is better than carbon neutral; it’s carbon positive.

“Up to eight years of age these olive trees will sequester [capture] carbon and from then on they will store carbon,” says Garth Cumberland, a New Zealand Institute of Forestry (NZIF) Registered Consultant who measures carbon sequestering -and storage.

“As soon as the Simunovich family planted their first tree, it started to absorb carbon to a greater extent than the pasture on which it was established.

"Pastoral grass or lawn carries a relatively low carbon store, whereas trees absorb and retain about 10 times more carbon than grass does,” Cumberland says.

Olive trees are fast sequesters of carbon because they grow quickly. Once they reach a certain age, however, they will only store rather than collect carbon, because of the pruning they’re subjected to as a managed crop.

GREEN HERITAGE

“When I saw the beautiful piece of land [now Simunovich Olive Estate] south of Auckland, I thought I could do something that was better for it than a dairy farm. Olives occurred to me because of my heritage,” says Simunovich, who migrated to New Zealand 15 years ago to escape war-torn Croatia.

An economist by trade, she was looking for a new business opportunity when she purchased her 90ha estate. “I started with olives because I know they produce well, and it has worked,” she says.

GOOD OIL

The first products from the estate were extra-virgin and flavoured olive oils. Since then Simunovich has launched two skincare ranges. The first, Olive Body Care, incorporates the estate-grown olive oil. The second, Tebe Skin Care, goes a step further.

Launched in New Zealand in April, it contains olive leaf extract, which has been used to treat skin conditions for at least 4000 years. The ancient Greeks used it to treat acne. Today, in some countries it is being used in place of antibiotics.

“Olive leaf extract helps to combat fungal, yeast and parasitic infections. It’s used for diabetes and STDs and to improve the elasticity of arteries and blood flow,” Simunovich says.

RESOURCEFULNESS

“For a product to be good for our bodies, it’s important to me that it’s good for the planet in terms of its production, so I’ve always wanted to be organic,” Simunovich says. “But I found that ideal hard to live up to from a practical point of view.

“For the first three years, I didn’t spray any chemicals, but then I ended up with a fungus that I had to spray, so becoming organic in the timeframe I’d envisaged proved to be impossible,” she explains.

“We’re still aiming to be certified organic, but in the meantime we’re reducing our negative environmental impact in every way we can. That’s why we employed Garth Cumberland to measure our trees for carbon sequestering,” Simunovich says.

SUSTAINABILITY

Simunovich Olive Estate is first and foremost a business. Ironically, the main impetus for Simunovich’s focus on sustainability was not the “clean, green New Zealand market” but, rather, her export markets.

“As soon as I started exporting, I was asked a lot of in-depth questions about my organic status,” she recalls. “That’s when I knew I had to take another approach to my green focus. I discovered there was a way I could calculate how much carbon I produce and

I worked really hard to reduce it.

“If someone comes up with [an organic] solution to the fungus – and we’re keeping our eyes and ears open – we’ll go the organic way, all the way.”