As our climate consciousness increases, so does the urgency to make greener choices and sustainable changes to the way we live our lives and the way in which businesses operate.   As Retail Active increasingly deliver for our customer’s globally we have become more aware of our responsibility to make a commitment to change. 

Through the Advantage Smollan Path to Purpose initiative, a series of focus areas designed to make a sustainable difference to the people who work with us, the communities we serve and the planet upon which we all live, Retail Active has signed up to a carbon offsetting programme with our sister companies and OblongTrees. 

Together we have signed up to a global tree planting programme, committing to planting 12,000 trees a year for the next six years.  Over this time as the trees mature, and as additional carbon reducing initiatives are put in place, we will become carbon neutral by 2025 and from this point will achieve carbon negative status for both our managed and grey fleet.

Rachael Simmonds, Retail Active MD, said:

There is no doubt that climate change is harming our planet and as a global business operating in many markets, Retail Active wanted to find a way to sequester carbon dioxide and become carbon neutral by 2025.  Our partnership with Oblong Trees enables us to do this whilst also preserving our natural environment planting native trees that provide wildlife habitats and support biodiversity.

OblongTrees was born when Oblong (UK) Ltd started looking into offsetting their carbon footprint.  After facing many challenges with carbon footprint calculations, issues with carbon credits and cost prohibitive planting initiatives they found there was no one to turn to and realised other companies also wanting to offset carbon emissions were experiencing similar issues, and so, the decision was made to launch OblongTrees. 

OblongTrees is not for profit and in fact does not even cover their costs.  Currently all the money received goes into planting trees and Oblong (UK) Ltd funds all operating costs with staff volunteering their time for free. The long-term goal is to turn OblongTrees into a self-sufficient not for profit charity.