Altius Group become a Climate Friendly Workforce

Altius Group Limited is delighted to announce that we have recently partnered with Ecologi to become a Climate Friendly Workforce.

In our first eight weeks of being carbon friendly, we have planted 1,450 trees and offset 105 tonnes of carbon which pollutes the atmosphere.

To put this into perspective, our 105-tonne reduction of carbon is equivalent to 81 long haul flights, 318 metre² of sea ice saved or 262,887 miles driven in a car.

Ecologi helps companies and individuals fund impactful climate solutions, plant trees, analyse their carbon footprint and achieve carbon neutrality. Ecologi’s goal is to reduce half of the world’s emissions by 2040 and to help reverse climate change. They believe that a little input from a lot of people can create real, tangible, and lasting change.

But what is a Climate Friendly Workforce?

To put it simply, it is a team that takes collective action to give back to the planet. Ecologi’s monthly subscription enables us as a business to mitigate all our employees’ carbon footprint, as well as plant trees. This includes all their travel, energy use, food, and hobbies, whether they take place inside or outside of the business.

Using Ecologi, we can track the carbon reduction projects we are supporting and where our trees are planted. Since February, we have supported the generation of clean electricity from hydropower in India with 51.92 tonnes of carbon reduction already. This project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing electricity in the grid that would have been produced by burning fossil fuels. Thanks to this hydropower plant, 17,614 tonnes of carbon will be prevented from being emitted every year.

We are also assisting with wind power generation in Vietnam. In 2020, over half of Vietnam’s electricity was generated from coal. This project will generate 320,000 MWh of renewable electricity every year and feed it into Vietnam’s national grid, helping to bridge the gap between supply and demand that currently exists. By replacing electricity generated from fossil fuel-fired power plants with electricity generated using wind power, this project will prevent around 143,000 tonnes of carbon from being emitted into the atmosphere every year.

Altius Group has also aided mangrove planting in Madagascar, forest restoration in Kenya and reforestation in Mozambique. Ecologi take pride in planting the most well-loved trees that ever did grow through reforesting responsibly. This means planting ecologically appropriate trees in the right places, coordinating with local communities, and ensuring that trees are protected from outdoor threats (both natural and manmade) so that they can survive, thrive, and help support biodiversity.

Trees can absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their biomass; this carbon absorption ability is entirely natural and exceeds the efficiency of any manmade carbon removal tech that currently exists. As well as carbon sequestration, planting trees is a brilliant thing to do for several other reasons:

• Trees provide habitat, shade, shelter, and food for local wildlife.
• Trees can provide products that local community members can sell without harming the trees themselves. E.g., fruits and nuts.
• Degraded soil increases the risk of natural hazards like landslides and the roots of trees help to stabilize the soil and minimize this risk for local communities.
• Trees can help to purify air and water sources, providing better health outcomes for local communities.
• Coastal tree species like mangroves provide excellent natural barriers which protect the shoreline from the storms.
• Trees make us feel better: research suggests they have a positive impact on our mental health.

Ecologi partners with Eden Reforestation Projects (Eden) whose mission is to provide fair-wage employment to impoverished villagers as agents of global forest restoration. Eden hires locals to restore forests on a massive scale, thereby creating jobs, protecting ecosystems, and helping mitigate climate change. Using an “employ-to-plant” methodology provides a consistent income in sustainable land-use practices for the local people who are employed as planters, nursery staff, and forest guards as part of the project activity. This consistent income allows the local community to achieve greater levels of access to education, nutrition, and healthcare.

Becoming a carbon friendly workforce enables us to fight climate change and change lives while initiating conversation between colleagues surrounding their personal carbon footprint. These everyday conversations could make a huge difference to the future of our planet.

Andrew K Steen, Sales and Marketing Director at Altius Group stated: “Protecting the environment and fighting climate change is more important than it’s ever been, and Altius Group are proud to support Ecologi by becoming a Climate Friendly Workforce. In just eight weeks, we have proudly offset 105 tonnes of carbon and planted 1,450 trees. Our ongoing investment with Ecologi covers all business and personal carbon emissions which we as a business and as company personnel create. In addition to investing in carbon positive initiatives, we are also seeking to reduce our carbon footprint and have recently completed a five-figure investment program to upgrade our internal lighting at Eaves Brook House to energy-efficient LED lighting. We are excited for the future and the contributions we can make through being a carbon friendly business.”

Our forest will continue to grow every month and can be viewed on our public sustainability profile.