We take pride in what we’re doing to increase our sustainability, and we know that our current and potential customers are also interested. As part of this, we’re happy to announce that we’ve planted over 7,900 trees and sponsored two Gold Standard Projects for the month of April.
Over 4,200 trees planted across Nepal, Haiti, and Indonesia
We plant trees for our web hosting, managed WordPress, and VPS packages. And we now work directly with Eden Reforestation Projects, planting our customers’ trees through them to three specific countries — Haiti, Indonesia, and Nepal. They work closely with the communities in each region to ensure that the right trees are planted at the right time.
In Haiti, a country that has been massively deforested over the past centuries, they are helping to replenish the mangrove forests in the south, preventing coastal erosion and helping to restore ocean health. And across southeast Haiti, they are working with local communities to build up food supplies, planting mangoes, moringas, citrus, and papaya trees.
Across the island of Biak in Indonesia, they are restoring the mangrove forests that were devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Restoring these mangroves will also help prevent flooding and soil erosion in the area, not to mention providing a safe space for wildlife to thrive.
In Nepal, they are working in three areas — the mountains in the west, helping to protect villages from landslides and other natural disasters, the grasslands in the southeast, working with the local communities to restore previously deforested land and creating a buffer zone for the Chitwan National Park, helping protect the many endangered species in the region, including Bengal tigers, clouded leopards, and Asiatic elephants.
Over 3,000 mangroves planted in Madagascar
We offset our employees’ carbon footprints through Ecologi, and through them, we planted over 70 mangroves in their Marataola project. We also work with Tree-Nation to buy trees for special events, and in April, we planted 3,000 mangroves for the Eden Reforestation Project as a gift. Mangroves are amazing for restoring coastlines, filtering seawater, and providing a home for wildlife.
500 trees planted for Earth Day
To celebrate Earth Day this year, we decided to plant trees around the world. Along with 150 mangroves for the Eden Reforestation Project and 100 for Ecologi’s Marataola project, we planted 250 trees in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Colombia, France, India, Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This included oaks, beeches, moringas, lemons, tamarinds, jacarandas, acacias, firs, and what’s known as the Noah’s Walnut, a tree that’s popular with the local cassowaries in the Daintree Rainforest of Queensland, Australia.
Over 50 trees planted in Mozambique
Along with the trees in Madagascar, Ecologi planted over 50 trees for their Changalane project in Mozambique. Including baobab trees, gum arabic trees, and others. These trees not only help to restore deforested lands but protect local wildlife and provide jobs for the community.
11 oak trees planted in the United Kingdom
With Ecologi, we now plant one tree in the United Kingdom, and this month, it was a Quercus petraea, or sessile oak, that was planted in Dalry, Scotland as part of their partnership with the Future Forest Company. We also planted 10 Quercus robur, or pedunculate oaks, with Tree-Nation for the Community Tree Planting project as a gift.
Funding methane digesters in Thailand
Ecologi also sponsors Gold Standards projects for us, and this month we are helping turn wastewater from the Thai San Miguel Liquor distillery in Bangkok into electricity thanks to methane digesters. Previously, the wastewater from making their alcoholic products would go into lagoons and evaporate the methane over time, releasing it into the air. But by adding methane digesters, the methane is collected and used to power not only the boilers in the distillery, but also help power the national grid of Thailand, reducing emissions by over 87,000 tonnes per year.
Providing fuel-efficient cook stoves in Honduras
The other project this month is helping Envirofit distribute 300,000 fuel-efficient stoves across Honduras. Over one million households use biomass-burning open stoves for heating and cooking, and deforestation is a major issue for the country. By providing households with closed fuel-efficient cookstoves, not only does it reduce the amount of wood needed to heat the home and cook meals, it also reduces particulate matter in the air, reducing pollution-related health problems for families.
Our impact
Through our tree planting and project funding, we’ve reduced our carbon footprint by a further 290 tonnes, making it over 2,800 tonnes since we started. That’s the equivalent of eight and a half kilometres squared of sea ice being saved, 1,454,700 litres of petrol not being used, or nearly 1,000 tonnes of rubbish being recycled instead of thrown into a landfill.
We’ll keep you updated every month with what we’re doing in our blog and we hope you’re as excited about our work as we are.
