Environmental

Carbon Footprint!

The Boomerang Team are very aware of the current issues we are faced with and by launching a new Prepaid Card made of Plastic, we were very anxious to make sure we worked with an equally aware partner. By teaming up with Alliance & Leicester plc, we have chosen an ideal partner who already is involved in a number of initiatives in keeping their carbon footprint down year on year. Below is a current example of one of their current schemes:

The Heart of the Forest Carbon Challenge Scheme

The Heart of the Forest Carbon Challenge Scheme has been designed for companies who are adopting a holistic approach to meeting the challenge of climate change and are doing so in a way that is aligned to their CR activities and is visible and tangible in the UK.

The Heart of the Forest Carbon Challenge Scheme is operated by the Heart of the National Forest Foundation in liaison with the National Forest. The Heart of the National Forest Foundation is a charity established in 1998 with a remit to support the creation of the National Forest and to provide a recreational, educational and environmental resource which helps to raise the public’s awareness of the major environmental issues faced by the world and of the steps we all can take to address those issues.

As part of their approach to CR, many companies are actively adopting measures to reduce carbon production and to seek to offset that carbon which it is not possible to reduce for business reasons. Such companies however have not been able to identify carbon offset schemes that have a visible impact on their local communities or environment. The Heart of the Forest Carbon Challenge scheme provides the opportunity for companies to resolve this dilemma. The Scheme provides for a company to invest in long term tree planting and maintenance alongside a range of activities designed to encourage communities and individuals to alter their lifestyles to reduce the climate change. The Carbon Challenge scheme enables companies who demonstrate their commitment to reducing carbon emissions and to assessing their remaining carbon footprint. The company would then need to determine what the cost of offsetting that carbon footprint would be in the carbon offset market and determine what proportion of that amount it would wish to be seen to invest in the Carbon Challenge Scheme. The Foundation will use investments made under the scheme for the creation and promotion of new facilities and activities designed to raise public awareness about how individuals can make a contribution towards tackling climate change, and the planting and maintenance of new accessible woodlands within the National Forest.

In particular, in 2008 the Foundation will use Alliance & Leicester’s contribution to develop a series of Carbon Challenge routes around Conkers, the Heart of the Forest Park visitor centre in Leicestershire. The routes would be designed for a range of ages, for use by schools and by families. The clues and discoveries made en route would all be on the theme of ‘what difference can I make to Climate Change?’ The Foundation believes that such routes will be successful in raising people’s awareness of the amount of carbon they generate. The Foundation will produce externally validated information on the numbers of people participating in activities as well as the carbon absorbed by the new tree planting.