This year K International will begin a five year project to plant 50,000 trees.

After many years of searching, the site chosen for the new woodland will be in the north east of England (about 20 miles south west of Newcastle). It will involve developing a previously derilicted industrial site (that was once coal mine) into a place of natural beauty.

After the planting is complete the new woodland will be maintained and monitored by K International to make sure that the trees reach maturity, this will take between 50 and 150 years depending on the species.

Tree Planting

We are planting a mixture of Spruce, Pine, Beech and Oak to grow together to form a traditional British Woodland. Providing a rich habitat for some of Britain's rare birds, insects, squirrels, bats, foxes, badgers and deer.

As the woodland becomes established it will also provide a home for many other species of flora and fauna indigenous to the local area.

Our hope is to plant 8,000 trees this year, the vast majority of which will be planted mechanically directly into the soil. We have planted a small number by hand in selected areas within the site.

Environmental Benefits

Research from the Trust for Public Land, Sacramento, California says that a single mature tree will absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 21.8kgs/year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings. 50,000 trees will remove 1 million kgs of CO2 and put back enough oxygen to support 100,000 people every year.

This is far in excess (by a factor of ten) of the carbon dioxide that we produce as a result of our business activities and means that we will be removing much more CO2 than we are responsible for, making us a carbon neutral business.

Other pollutants are also removed from the atmosphere by trees. These include; sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. Research suggests that these vary given the environment surrounding the woodland.

Why are we doing it?

It has always been the wish of our organisation to drive forward a programme that has the ability to provide significant economic, social and environmental benefits outside of our company.

When researching this project we had options of planting trees via a third party in countries such as India or Africa. Whilst these programmes are very important we wanted a project that our staff and stakeholders could visit and experience the benefits of first hand.

The Log Blog

To support the project and to keep everyone up-to-date with the latest developments we have published a blog, thelogblog.co.uk. Please bookmark it and visit it regularly.

On there we will post regular articles about this project, the environment and easy ways that you can reduce your or your company's carbon footprint.

If you have any comments/suggestions about this project please email us on info@k-international.com. We welcome all feedback.