Roofspace Solutions Home

The Road to Sustainability

One tree at a time

The positive impact that tree planting can have in supporting efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change is no secret. Each new tree planted sequesters CO2 over its growth time, helping to slow down damage caused through deforestation, desertification, and flooding.

As part of our ongoing commitment to sustainable development and a low-carbon economy, we have partnered with (more:trees); an organisation that helps businesses take impactful climate action through global tree planting projects.

The organisation has already planted over a million trees worldwide, so we caught up with Alan Wilson, co-founder of (more:trees) to find out how it is helping to restore environments and habitats, and the impact that Roofspace is making.

Alan says:

“The UK government has stipulated that all UK businesses must be Net Zero by 2050. It’s an ambitious target, but one that is starting to resonate as more and more people become more carbon conscious and aware of their impact on the environment.

 Increasingly, businesses are being asked to show proof of their efforts in becoming Net Zero, especially within the construction industry where high emissions are notorious.  

 It is vital that businesses begin to measure their carbon footprint and make efforts to reduce their level of emissions. This can also be enhanced by offsetting through the purchasing of carbon credits making the goal of Carbon Zero entirely possible to reach across the UK and the construction industry.’

Through our partnership, Roofspace Solutions, alongside Saint-Gobain and the Offsite Solutions division is already making an impact.

The business currently plants on average two trees for every i-Roof installed, as it strives to become a carbon neutral business by 2045. These trees will sequester approximately 1003.8 tonnes of carbon while also restoring the timber used during the manufacturing process.

But there’s much more to the partnership than the numbers alone as Alan explained:

‘Tree planting through (more:trees) supports many UN Sustainable Development Goals such as poverty alleviation, life below water, zero hunger, life on land, gender equality, and health and wellbeing.

 We work with local communities to ensure that tree planting projects achieve more than just an ecological impact, contributing to the local economies by employing local villagers to help with the tree planting process, lifting communities out of poverty.  We ensure positive relationships with our local tree planting partners that work to restore healthy forests in Kenya, Madagascar and Haiti, monitoring and managing forests to maintain our high 80 per cent survival rate of trees’

Construction is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to carbon emissions, and Roofspace has already made great strides on our road to carbon zero. We have pledged to replace any timber we use during manufacturing, alongside taking steps to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill and minimise the energy used per unit.

Together with (more:trees), we continuing to work to make a difference to the future of our planet.  If we truly want to protect our environment for future generations, then we must take the steps now and encourage all businesses to act by implementing simple, measurable steps.