Voxelab has recently launched the Aquila D1 3D printer with a bold claim to use sales to help combat climate change.

Aquila D1 is a medium format printer at 235 x 235 x 250 mm, which offers a 14% larger print volume than previous models. Features include a high-temperature nozzle that can heat up to 300 °C and a claimed maximum print speed of 180 mm/s, which the company says is 200% faster than Aquila C2. The printer also claims to be more precise, with a 25-point auto leveling and an X- and Y-axis linear guide. It also features a filament sensor to detect when the material has run out, and power outage recovery, meaning no failed prints after a short-term power cut.

Voxelab promises to plant a tree for every Aquila D1 printer brought through the Voxelab official website to offset the company’s carbon emissions. The actual planting of the trees is through an initiative called Tree-Nation, which is “on a mission to plant 1 trillion trees by 2050” to solve deforestation. So far, the company has planted 24,771,619 trees.

Greenwashing?

Although trees and forests are a crucial part of the ecosystem and can absorb carbon dioxide, environmentalists have raised the alarm that companies claiming to offset carbon emissions created during manufacturing are just greenwashing. In part, this is because planting trees is not a sufficient solution to the environmental changes triggered by polluters. A 2021 article for the Guardian newspaper claimed that “there just isn’t enough land on Earth to plant enough trees to soak up all the carbon that big polluters keep spewing into the atmosphere.”

There’s also concern that such monolithic forests may sound the death knell for biodiversity. In his recent book, ‘Feral‘, the British journalist George Monbiot champions wild ecosystems where nature takes care of itself “rewilding, to me, is about resisting the urge to control nature and allowing it to find its own way.” Although tree planting is “booming,” the climate journalist Catrin Einhorn wrote for the New York Times this March, “planting the wrong trees in the wrong place can actually reduce biodiversity, speeding extinctions and making ecosystems far less resilient.”

Poorly managed reforestation projects might serve as a double disruption if they result in the displacement of local communities. Indigenous activists said at Cop26 that tree planting is resulting in “a new form of colonialism.”

Tree-Nation supports tree-planting initiatives all around the world. The company policy on greenwashing is to work with companies under the mandate that it will ​​not spend more on communicating about tree planting activities than what [it] spend[s] on planting the trees.”

The Aquila D1 is available now for preorder at $399.