Philips, dutch company leader in health technology, decided to create two Forests with Treedom, planting 600 trees in Ecuador, Kenya, Madagascar and Tanzania.
The initiative first involved the employees of the Mother & Child Care department, before being integrated into the Philips Sustainability Ambassador Program. We talked with Mirko Cartei, Senior Director, Innovation Lead Mother & Child Care, to learn more about the operation.
Mirko, Philips decided to give a tree to all its employees in the Mother and Child Care department globally. How did the idea come about?
The idea came up by connecting the dots on how to reward our new employees' onboarding next to recognize the existing ones in their development path in our Mother&Child Care team spread across the globe. When I discovered on social media what Treedom is doing it was an instant “click”. We recognize that greening the planet one tree at a time, resonates with our mission too to groom and develop our teammates!
How did you introduce the project and how was it received by employees?
While setting up the collaboration with Treedom, we started by introducing what the company does in our Philips internal social media communication channel and then in one of our Virtual Coffee Corner meetings we also invited a representative of Treedom to introduce directly what & how agroforestry projects are done next to present our tree-gift initiative.
This initiative has been very well received by our teammates and also sparked a lot of curiosity and appreciation.
Then, you included the trees as prizes in Philips Sustainability Ambassador Program. Could you tell us a little bit about it?
The Philips Sustainability Ambassador Development Program is a one year program that brings together ambitious intrapreneurs at Philips who are passionate about sustainability and want to step up to create more impact from across businesses, markets and functions. We gifted a tree to every participant of this year’s Ambassador Program as we wanted to recognize what they were about to start with a gift that would not only be sustainable but that would also reflect their personal and professional growth. Together with their tree they will grow.
Discover the Philips Avent Forest
Discover the Philips Sustainability Ambassador Forest
