Yorkshire Firms Join Forces to Tackle Global Climate Change
A charity formed by Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate with the support of Deloitte, is bringing together companies in the region and beyond to tackle the biggest cause of climate change, deforestation.
Known as the United Bank of Carbon (UBoC), the organisation represents a bank of rainforest protection projects from all over the world which have been verified by experts at Leeds University’s School of Earth and the Environment, the largest in the country. Businesses are able to choose a specific environmental project to partner which has synergies with their own organisation, providing an easy and reliable route to implementing an effective corporate social responsibility programme.
UBoC is the vision of Jonathan Wild, chairman of Bettys and Taylors, which has long been an exponent of trading fairly and ethical sourcing. Having succeeded in planting three million trees on four continents over the last twenty years and donating more than £1m to Oxfam, the company has now turned its attention to saving rainforests.
Mr Wild explains: “We realised that with the rate of deforestation, we simply couldn’t make a big enough impact quickly enough working on our own. While our customers have embraced our ‘green’ initiatives, in order to really scale things up, we needed to collaborate with other companies and join forces to make a real difference.
“As our tea and coffee suppliers are based in the tropics, we are familiar with the problems facing indigenous peoples and have long been working with them to find solutions to the destruction of their environment. However, for most businesses, this is a completely unknown area – the purpose of UBoC is to provide a link between the corporate world and rainforest protection.
“There’s no doubt that for us, the consumer buy-in to our UBoC rainforest project has played a key role in the continued success of our business. For other firms, there may be different benefits such as staff engagement. The motives really aren’t important, what’s crucial is that as many businesses as possible become involved.”
Mary Rhead-Corr, executive director of UBoC, explained, “Many people don’t realise that stopping deforestation is probably the biggest fix in slowing down global warming. Twelve million hectares of tropical rainforest are being destroyed every year, creating up to 25 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, more than all of the world’s transport put together.
“UBoC is a one-stop shop giving businesses an easy route to reaching more than 40 rainforest projects, all of which have undergone a rigorous screening procedure to ensure their viability. By working with Deloitte, we have had access to some of the best business advice in the world, enabling us to offer companies projects which stand up to the financial scrutiny which they would expect of any other part of their business.
“Already some of the leading businesses in the region such as NG Bailey and the Shepherd Group have given their support to the initiative. We hope that they are the first of many and that Yorkshire will lead the way in demonstrating how businesses can work together to protect rainforests and have a real impact on climate change.”
For more information, visit www.unitedbankofcarbon.com or contact mary.rhead-corr@unitedbankofcarbon.com
