Tree planting is key to tackling the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, and we’re proud to be playing our part here at Lion, through our partnerships with environmental charity, One Tree Planted, and Glasgow City Council.
As we reported recently, we’ve landed the brief to design and deliver 1,000 sustainable volunteer uniforms for this autumn’s Cop26 climate conference, in Glasgow. We’ve pledged to plant a tree for every uniform we create.
And now Glasgow City Council has decided where they’d like these trees to be planted – in Malawi, southeast Africa.
Scotland has long had a special relationship with Malawi. Glasgow City Council has worked with the country since 2004 as part of the Lord Provost’s Malawi Fund, which focuses on providing education in the country – while Malawi and Scotland formalised a partnership for sustainable development back in 2005.
Malawi couldn’t be more deserving of the attention.
Deforestation in the country is estimated to be responsible for the loss of around 33,000 hectares per year, due to agriculture expansion, tobacco growing, and excessive use of biomass (the renewable organic material that comes from plants and animals).
This has led to forest degradation, fragmentation of wildlife habitats and challenges for local farming communities. The good news is, tree planting has a huge impact on restoring forests and all the benefits they bring to wildlife, watersheds, climate stability
One Tree Planted’s reforestation initiative in Malawi – which Lion is supporting as part of its work with Glasgow City Council on Cop26 – works with local communities to restore indigenous forest trees to the landscape, in cooperation with communities, while installing water wells, pumps and fruit trees.
Planting trees in combination with these sustainable development measures tackles the roots of deforestation by taking pressure off mature trees and educating local women how to build fuel-efficient clay-brick stoves to save firewood and improve their lives.
Sustainability, along with fair and ethical work practices, are part of our DNA at Lion, so we’re really happy to be supporting such an important project.
Browse our sustainable PPE and workwear
Find out more about One Tree Planted’s work in Malawi here
