Brunel Foundation Forest
The Brunel Foundation Forest is all about contributing to a better climate and greater biodiversity. We welcome everyone working at Brunel to accompany us on our mission: to fight climate change together, one tree at a time. What started in July 2021, when the Brunel Foundation partnered with EcoMatcher to plant 1,000 trees in Thailand, has grown within a year to a huge forest of 17,000 trees across the world.
Growing a sustainable partnership
The latest milestone was planting an additional 12,000 trees – one for each and every specialist in Brunel’s global network. “We are very proud that we can make everyone at the company part of our sustainability journey by gifting them a tree in our Global Forest across various locations around the world, and that we can in this way foster awareness of the value of trees,” says Femke Dijkstra, who founded the Brunel Foundation together with Maritska Aarts.
In line with Brunel’s ESG strategy and the Brunel Foundation’s threefold commitment to People, Planet and Community, we partnered with EcoMatcher, a certified B corporation and UN partner, to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by contributing to reforestation and land restoration.
As a responsible company with a global network of specialists, it was important not only to set a good example and make a positive impact on our environment: We also wanted the initiative to reflect our values and international reach. For these reasons, tree planting organizations from around the world – in countries including Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Ecuador, Kenya, Madagascar and Bhutan – were carefully vetted and selected to grow the global Brunel Foundation Forest and to support local farmers and families. “EcoMatcher is super proud to partner with Brunel and plant the global Brunel Foundation Forest of 15,000 trees in a transparent way,” says Bas Fransen, CEO and founder of EcoMatcher. “This initiative could not have come at a better time.”
The live tracker above always shows the latest number of trees, their locations and species, as well as the total amount of carbon sequestered.
Benefits of reforestation
Besides sequestering carbon and increasing soil fertility, leading to improved biodiversity, each tree planting organization is committed to conserving local forests and saving endangered plants from extinction. The social enterprise “MyBhutan”, for example, co-founded by His Royal Highness Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck and Matthew R. DeSantis, aims to empower local communities by conserving the environment and promoting sustainability in the Kingdom of Bhutan. Here, local farmers actively participate in protecting at-risk species by cultivating endangered plants such as the Burmese rosewood and the ironwood tree. When they grow to maturity, the trees in the Brunel Foundation Forest will have a positive social and economic impact in many ways, above and beyond the obvious benefit to the environment.
Learn more about Brunel’s ESG Commitment and the Brunel Foundation.
