Carbon Capture Programme – September ’16

Hello and welcome to the September issue of our Carbon Capture newsletter.

We’re aiming for 64,000,000 new trees! 64,000,000 is a big number! But over the next ten years the Woodland Trust have set a very big target – to plant a tree for every person in the UK. And that’s around 64 million!

By Carbon Capturing our paper purchases through the Premier Paper Group’s Carbon Capture scheme, we intend to do our bit and help the Woodland Trust reach their new target and last year, our efforts helped to plant 55,000 trees! Trees and woods are a cornerstone of our landscape and countryside, crucial not only as homes for wildlife and nature, but also forming an essential and cherished part of our cultural identity. However, our trees and woods face real challenges. Today, they face the perfect storm of climate change, pests and diseases and constant destructive pressures from development, over grazing and intensive land use. By Carbon Capturing our paper purchases we mitigate the CO2 emissions from the production and transport of our paper, by donating money to the Woodland Trust (the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity). The Trust in turn use this money to plant new native woodland and maintain ancient and existing woodland right here in the UK.

Planting in the community & schools! Woodland Trust tree packs for schools and communities offer the perfect opportunity to bring people together to plant trees – encouraging local wildlife, protecting our landscape against tree disease and creating beautiful wooded areas that people can enjoy for years to come.

If you are a school or community group in the UK who want to make a difference to your local environment, you could be eligible for our tree packs. Thanks to funding from our partners, the packs are available at no cost to you. Simply visit the link below for more information:

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/in-your-community/

Autumn Watch
A selection of autumn signs to spot:
• Last Swallow seen
• First ripe Hawthorne fruit
• First ripe Blackthorne fruit
• First ripe Horse Chestnut fruit
• First ripe Bramble fruit
• First Ivy Flowering

Tree of the Month : Midland Hawthorn

Also as a bit of fun, on each edition of our Carbon Capture Programme we will be naming our tree of the month, this month we have chosen the Midland Hawthorne.

A large shrub that can sometimes grow into a small tree, reaching to 8 metres in height but can be taller. It provides a dense, thorny cover. In medieval times in the UK, Midland hawthorn was probably the more common of the two hawthorn species, favouring ancient woods and hedge banks. Today, those habitats are much rarer, and so the species is less abundant. Flower clusters are followed by red, oval berries, called haws, in autumn. The haws contain two seeds, differentiating Midland hawthorn from common hawthorn. One cultivated red variant is ‘Paul’s Scarlet’ which can be commonly seen in suburban parks and gardens. It grows best in ancient woodland, shady old woodlands and hedge-banks on clay soils. It’s most common in central and southern England (south of the Humber) and is fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. Midland hawthorn is uncommon in Wales, Scotland, south-west England and East Anglia.

At Datum, we are proud of our ongoing commitment to respecting the environment and conducting our business in a way that is at once ethical, sustainable and responsible, an ongoing commitment to our ISO14001 accreditation