Small and medium sized companies across Ireland are being invited to celebrate Earth Day by planting trees to offset their carbon footprint.

Retailers, small manufacturers and other businesses are being invited to join us, as we aim to plant a million new trees in Africa, this year. If it reaches its goal, the initiative will enable Irish businesses to plant trees that will remove more than 20 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year, for decades to come.

We’ll work with interested businesses to calculate carbon consumption based on utility bills and other information provided. Businesses will get an estimate of the number of trees they need to plant for offsetting purposes, together with a plan to meet these carbon targets by planting trees in Africa and Ireland.  Read more here about business carbon offsetting.

Trees play an important part in our work as they are a key part of the mix of activities on small-farms, where they provide a source of food, income and much more, she added.

Tree planting in Africa as a means of carbon sequestration isn’t expensive. Each tree planted, once mature, will remove approximately 25kg of carbon from the atmosphere every year. The cost for a small-business of offsetting its total carbon footprint can amount to just a few hundred euro a year.

For the initiative we’ve also partnered with Irish-led start up GreenFeet, who provide consultancy services to businesses seeking to devise more comprehensive carbon-offsetting strategies. GreenFeet’s easy to use app allows corporate clients to quickly calculate their carbon usage, and reduce their carbon emissions. 

Business owner Eamonn Victory of Centra in Dunleer, Co Louth, has signed up to offset the carbon that is generated by his grocery business. “I started to look at the energy that my business was consuming, and loved the idea of doing something that would allow my business to become carbon neutral. A little bit of research told me that planting trees was the most effective answer,” he said.

Meanwhile, we’ve teamed up once more with Glenisk, for a second public campaign to promote tree planting in Ireland and Africa. ‘Another One Million Trees’ was launched last month, and will plant ten trees in Africa and one native tree in Ireland for every €5 donated.