Yorkshire Trees for Yorkshire Business
A new scheme has been announced that will give businesses the opportunity to reduce their impact on the environment by helping to create new woodlands in Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Dales.
During National Tree Week in 2012, dales charity Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT), and Skipton-based compliance company Comply Direct planted trees on the Bolton Abbey Estate to celebrate the start of a new partnership. The two organisations have joined forces to help individuals and businesses that care about the environment and want to reduce their carbon footprint, to invest in local woodland creation.
YDMT Director David Sharrod said: “We know that many businesses want to reduce their impact on the environment, and planting trees is one of the very best things you can do. Working with Comply Direct we aim to give businesses the opportunity to invest in accredited woodland creation projects that are right on their doorstep. The new woodlands will not only help mitigate carbon emissions they will also benefit the landscape and wildlife of this area and people everywhere who enjoy visiting them.”
This week Comply Direct announced that their own business is now carbon neutral, after donating money to YDMT to be used for new tree planting in the Yorkshire Dales.
Gareth Roberts, Managing Director of Comply Direct, said “Planting trees is a great way to offset our carbon footprint at Comply Direct and to become carbon neutral. As a Yorkshire based company operating in the environmental sector we are delighted to be working with the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust on this project and we anticipate much more tree planting activity over the years. Our aim is to further help our customer base calculate their own environmental footprints, make reductions and potentially also become carbon neutral themselves via locally produced offsets. Such a process is not only good for the environment but great for the bottom line of a company.”
YDMT also aims to be carbon neutral by early next year.
Both organisations are determined to bring the same opportunity to businesses and individuals throughout the region and beyond. They plan to launch the new initiative in early 2013.
The new scheme brings together Comply Direct’s expertise in the field of carbon management with YDMT’s 15 year record of planting native woodlands in the Dales, which has been achieved by working with partners including the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and the Forestry Commission.
The initiative will help businesses to understand and take measures to reduce their carbon footprint, and can help them to become carbon neutral by investing in the planting of new native woodlands.
YDMT has also been closely involved in the development of the Woodland Carbon Code, a Forestry Commission initiative to deliver standards of best practice for UK woodland projects that are designed to capture and store carbon. The charity was involved in having one of the very first woodlands certified through the Woodland Carbon Code.
Geoff Garret, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s Senior Trees and Woodland Officer, said: “The Authority has been working closely with the YDMT for the last 15 years to create new areas of woodland – they play a vital role in maintaining this important, protected landscape and the wildlife within it.
“We are very pleased that the need to increase the area of woodland in the National Park has been recognised by a local company and we hope many more will follow its example.”
For more information please contact the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust[N.B. Please mention the Eagle Intermedia Yorkshire Dales website when making your enquiries.]
[News item based on press release supplied by the The Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, posted December 2012.]
The Yorkshire Dales is designed and maintained by Eagle Intermedia Publishing Ltd.
