Trees4Good and Corporate Social Responsibility

What is CSR?

Essentially Corporate Social Responsibility is about how business takes account of its economic, social and environmental impacts in the way it operates – maximising the benefits and minimising the downsides and helping to make a business think like a green business.

The action taken can take many forms - one of which is encompassed in the UN Millennium Development Goals - which Trees4Good supports and is actively helping to achieve in as many areas as possible.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

The aims of the MDG's are:

	1	Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
	2	Achieve universal primary eductaion
	3	Promote gender equality and empower women
	4	Reduce child mortality
	5	Improve maternal health
	6	Combat HIV/AIDS/Malaria and other diseases
	7	Ensure environmental sustainability
	8	Develop a global partnership for development

The Trees4Good program has an impact on many of these areas, some not immediately obvious. As we bring environmentally sustainable economic development to an area with our local partnerships, we help to eradicate poverty and hunger. That takes us a long way to pushing forwards towards the other goals listed above.

As part of your corporate social responsibility Trees4Good can touch so many areas.

For example taking one short haul flight from London to Barcelona, which is approx. 2276km will emit 264kg of carbon dioxide. This gives CO2 emissions of 0.12kg per km of travel. With a Jatropha tree in taking approximately 8kg of CO2 per annum, planting 33 trees will offset this flight permanently, and also continue to offset one flight of this type per year for 25 years. When one considers the extra benefits that Trees4Good brings to the communities where we plant, this really does mean a multiplier needs to be applied to the value of those trees.

Trees4Good plants trees ONLY in land that is not used for food or any other purpose.

We will never plant on land that is used, or could be used, for food.

All our planting is audited by universities and also by world leading auditors (such as Deloittes - who we use in Kenya). They also audit the land BEFORE we plant and continue to monitor progress as our projects develop.

This plus the clear multi-faceted benefits that are achieved with a Trees4Good Corporate Social Responsibility Partnership help to make sure that our projects are successful all over the globe. This in turn will ensure we achieve our aims of sustainability without dramatic cost, ultimately aiming at a positive cash return for the Corporate Social Responsibility programme over the programmes lifetime.