MANNOK AND LOCAL STUDENTS PLANT ONE THOUSAND TREES DURING NATIONAL TREE WEEK

During National Tree Week, Mannok and 16 students from St Aidan’s Highschool planted around 1000 native trees at the company’s Packaging facility to benefit biodiversity and enhance the surrounding landscape. Almost 10 different types of native broadleaf trees were planted, such as Oak, Birch, Sycamore and Hawthorn, helping the Packaging facility achieve its tree planting target defined in the Packaging Sustainability Strategy to “establish forestry onsite with 1000 trees.”

Mannok’s Environmental Team invited Year 9 pupils from a local high school, St Aidan’s, one of the four secondary schools the company has an educational partnership with, to join them in planting trees during National Tree Week.

Joining the week-long celebration to raise awareness of the importance of trees to the environment, which had a theme of ‘Biodiversity Begins With Trees’, the 16 students, Stephen Linden, Mannok’s Environmental Manager, and Oisin Lynch, Mannok’s Environmental Advisor, rolled up their sleeves to plant a small forest at the rear of the packaging facility in Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan.

Commenting on the importance of having local students involved, Mannok’s Packaging General Manager, Mark McKenna, said,

“It was important for us to have local students involved in this project as working in partnership with local groups and schools to raise awareness of biodiversity and the importance of conservation is a commitment within the protecting nature pillar of our sustainability strategy. We are very grateful for the help from the students, we hope they enjoyed learning more about nature and getting involved in a project to protect and develop the local environment.”

Mannok has a Packaging Products’ Sustainability Strategy, which has a key focus on “protecting what matters” and provides a roadmap to help the company achieve its sustainability goals over the next three years and continue as leaders in sustainability.

Protecting Nature is a key pillar within the strategy as the company aims to protect nature globally and locally, with the reduction of carbon emissions and the planting of trees to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and enhance biodiversity being a focus.

Mannok has already completed a number of targets within its strategy to enhance and protect nature, having planted half a million pollen and nectar rich flowers and native trees, uses 100% green electricity in the manufacture of its products and it has established three beehives housing 150K native Irish honeybee colonies at the front of the packaging facility, cared for by two beekeepers in the Packaging team and during last year’s honey harvest all 150 employees in Packaging received a jar of honey.

For more details on what Mannok has done to date to protect nature and what it has planned, download and read its Packaging’s Sustainability Strategy.