A Day in the Heart of England
Once a year, we assemble the whole team and head out to the middle of England to do a day of tree planting. Our founding promise is to plant 10 trees for every 200 products sold.
In the UK, we partner with the Heart of England Forest, an incredible organisation that is on a mission to plant 13 million trees and create and conserve 30,000 acres of native woodland. Tree planting season runs from November to mid-March, and heading out to the fields is a great way for the whole team to connect to our ethos and to see how much our woodland – and team – has grown. This time we managed to plant 600 trees in just a couple of hours!
A cleaner, better world
Forests are so important to us; they inspire our design (see Voronoi collection), provide material for our fixtures, and regulate our climate on a global scale. We are committed to creating beautifully designed objects that use the most energy efficient (low carbon) technology available. However, as a manufacturer, we are very aware that we have a significant carbon footprint. We plant trees to help reduce our carbon footprint but also because we believe in leaving behind a cleaner and better world for future generations.
Nearly half of the earth’s tree cover has been removed since the start of human civilisation.
Our tree planting programme began in the UK because our home country is actually one of the least wooded regions of Europe, with just 13% woodland cover compared to an average of 37%. There are around 3 billion trees left in the UK. On a global scale, 15 billion trees are lost each year due to logging and land-use change.
17 football pitches.
We plant 27 different species of shrubs and broadleaf trees, including oak and beech. Our plot in the Heart of England Forest has grown to 11,466 trees across 17.5 acres. That’s equivalent to 17 football pitches, or 280 tennis courts!
When mature, a single tree produces enough oxygen to support the needs of two adult humans.
Through photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and convert it into sugar for food, emitting oxygen (O2) back into the atmosphere as a by-product. Because trees can grow to great heights and live for hundreds of years, they absorb a significant amount of CO2 from the atmosphere over their lifetime. CO2 is one of the greenhouse gases emitted from combustion of non-renewable energy sources like coal and gas, which cause global warming and climate change through the greenhouse gas effect. This is why reforestation is an effective and simple contribution towards mitigating the effects of climate change. In essence, trees are purifying our polluted air, turning a greenhouse gas we have created too much of into food to grow, and giving us back oxygen to breathe; pretty bad ass!
Tree cover is also essential for soil conservation and flood control. Trees act as barriers to extreme weather, and without this protection, nutrient-rich soil used for farming is easily washed away. The Heart of England Forest supports the rich biodiversity of central England and its woodlands are open to the public year round.
Tala also support reforestation in North America in partnership with the National Forest Foundation. Click here to find out more.
