Suma Treeplanting Day March 2010

On the moors above the Leeds-Manchester railway tunnel, in the middle of March, Suma workers covered quite impressive swathes of turf with willow saplings. These are really useful for complementing the oak, birch and holly already set on the site and on reaching maturity will be coppiced and used as a renewable fuel source.

 The usual crack team of Suma’s finest environmentalists turned up dressed for battle with the elements and were rewarded with a really bright, mild spring day with intermittent sunshine. This had them on the back foot until they discovered they could remove layers in pursuit of comfort before launching into drilling holes in the turf with enormous heavy-duty iron spikes that also doubled as hammers to drive supporting stakes in for the saplings. Some of them also discovered it was relatively easy to remove chunks of flesh from your knuckles when the stakes fought back.

 Unperturbed by  fine weather and flesh wounds the team toiled on until well into the afternoon and, on reaching a logical end for the day, made their way down the valley to a local micro-brewery where they were completely unable to plant any trees and had to content themselves with sampling the local falling-over water.

Why plant trees?

Unfortunately the need to use mineral diesel to power the Suma distribution fleet is a problem we’re not able to solve immediately – at least until such time as alternative power sources become economically viable.   So we keep planting trees year after year in an attempt to offset our emissions from the fleet whilst concentrating on other areas to reduce our overall carbon footprint.  And this year was no exception. 

Suma is part of the Co2mmittment scheme, run by Treesponsibility,  a not-for-profit community group combining reforestation and ecological restoration with awareness-raising about climate change in the Calder Valley.  Every year Suma calculates its carbon emissions based on our fleet of vehicles and site at Elland and plants trees to offset this.

Popularity: 7% [?]