An Irish baby brand is going to plant a tree for every cot or bed sold this year in its own ‘Little Buds Forest’, a sustainability initiative with a target of planting 25,000 native trees over the next 12 months.
In conjunction with forestry consultants Veon, Baby Elegance’s project is partly funded through a Department of Agriculture afforestation scheme for native woodland establishment.
The first Little Buds Forest was planted this week in Co. Roscommon, the first 6,500 native trees to be planted under this initiative. Baby Elegance expects to plant its second forest by the end of 2021.
Native trees including oak, birch, and hazel tend to grow for 100s of years.
This initiative “enhances biodiverse habitats for native Irish species such as red squirrels, stoats, endangered bird species and other native wildlife”, according to Veon.
Each tree ‘a symbol of hope’
“Planting native trees and creating new native woodland cover provides a range of other ecosystem benefits such as mitigating flood risk, soil conservation, protecting wildlife and carbon sequestration.
‘Enhancing the natural environment also has positive benefits for local communities.
“A broadleaf oak forest, on average, sequesters 6.6t of CO2/ha per annum and a rotation may be 100 years long.
“The Little Buds Forest is 2.24ha in size and as such, will sequester an estimated 1,478t of CO2 over its lifetime.”
Gavan Costello, sales director of Baby Elegance said he looks forward to telling customers “that the cot their baby will sleep in will represent one tree in our forest, a symbol of hope for future generations to come”.