Climate change has been at the forefront of both news coverage and people’s minds recently, particularly following the COP26 summit, but customers of The Fleece in Addingham have been helping to offset daily CO2 emissions and may not even realise they have done so!
The Fleece in Addingham is part of The Oakman Group which has joined forces with the not-for-profit organisation, Tree-Nation, to plant trees in nominated plantations across Madagascar and Tanzania for every hot drink sold across their 36 venues in England.
Incredibly, in less than four months since launching their collaboration, sales of tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and kids’ drinks, will mean 250,000 trees will have been planted by Christmas time.
“Our target is to plant a million trees a year which will offset more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide during their lifetime. Reaching 250,000 will mean we are right on target, and with winter ahead of us we expect sales of hot drinks to increase,” said Oakman Group CEO, Dermot King.
He added: “We aim to run a business that we, and our customers, can be proud of. It’s important that we try to leave things a little better than we found them for our neighbours, guests and the wider community.”
250,000 trees will cover more than 100 hectares which equates to over 100 rugby pitches or 10 London O2 Arenas.
“We will also plant 100 additional trees every time we open a new pub,” added King. “With 10 new sites in our pipeline in the next 18 months, that’s another 1,000 trees.”
An extended range that the group has just launched means that even more hot drinks will be sold in the coming months. As well as the popular seasonal tipple mulled wine, the menu now includes cinnamon latte, gingerbread latte, and orange hot chocolate.
You can learn more about the ongoing project by visiting www.oakmaninns.co.uk/tree-nation where there is also a counter which regularly updates the number of trees planted from sales of hot drinks, as well as a link to see pictures and updates from the Oakman forests in Madagascar and Tanzania.