With our mission to make the world greener, we have been able to have an impact on our world for ten years already. Just over 1.5 million trees grow in 17 countries, improving soil and water quality, fighting soil erosion or desertification. As you know, our productive trees can also do more: yield for our smallholder farmers, which provides additional food security and income through sales at local markets.
The year 2020
Now a look at our headquarters in Florence: we spent much less time in our office in 2020 than planned. When we moved into the country house on the outskirts of Florence at the beginning of the year, we were looking forward to the terracotta-coloured walls, the vegetable garden and the rustic kitchen - and of course the beautiful offices. Instead of that, a "banished" in our home for four months of lockdown was waiting for us.
The lunch break between olive trees was cancelled again.
When we were able to return to the office in the summer, it was clear: now we really want to make the most of this opportunity. So, together with our team and Federico, our founder, we thought about how we could increase our impact even more and altogether take further steps to relieve the planet together and become even more sustainable.
Our step towards sustainability
A small team of sustainability enthusiasts then got together to develop a strategy to put this into action. Out of this came: a handbook for every employee, which should help as a guideline for behaviour in the office as well as at home. Included are examples of how much impact you can have, even with small changes! For instance, we are taking more care to fill the dishwasher completely before turning it on, we always turn the water off quickly, we hardly ever print out documents, and we have gradually changed our suppliers for food and drinks in the office. Besides, there will be incentives in the new year to come to work more by bike than by public transport. Stickers in the Treedom design, created by our art director, also draw attention to the use of air conditioning and remind us of everyday things such as constant airing, which otherwise quickly get lost in daily office life.
Probably the biggest step we're taking with our sustainability efforts is calculating Co2 for client appointments. Especially in Italy, face-to-face appointments (outside Covid) are extremely important - however, it is precisely these evaluation appointments that generate a lot of Co2, as our colleagues have to travel. Developed by Elisabetta Meconcelli, who otherwise takes care of our grants, we can now calculate exactly how much Co2 can be saved if we keep appointments exclusively online instead of travelling - and that's a huge amount! We also make this method available to our corporate clients! And if there are appointments that absolutely have to be kept in person, we plant trees right away to offset the Co2.
2021 is just around the corner
Especially for the new year, we would now like to adhere even more strictly to the Sustainability Handbook and all the tips given in it - because they fit perfectly into our good intentions for the new year. In general, our plans for Treedom - and this will surprise no one - are to plant even more trees, get small farmers involved, and save Co2 on a global level in the long run. On the smaller, direct level, we also want to increase our impact and are doing everything we can to continually remind ourselves and others of this, thanks to handbooks, posters and stickers in the office.
