The success of our Print A Tree Project is measured in impact, which reflects how we spend money which funds this project. Technically you do not spend a single penny on our Print A Tree Project as we do not pass these costs on to you. Instead, we take donations from our margins. This means that depending on the value of your order; we will donate anywhere between 5% to 65% of the product price.

As this is donated to Ecologi, there is a further breakdown of the donation. To make this as simple as possible, we will show a calculation below:

• You purchase a product or service from Black Label UK at £250.
• Black Label UK donates £50 to Ecologi.
• Ecologi spends £42.50 of the donation on directly funding planet-saving projects.
• The £7.50 left from the donation goes towards everything else at Ecologi, including staff and premises costs, hosting and licenses.

Transparency and trust are core to the success of our Print A Tree Project. Black Label UK and Ecologi responsibly put your donations to the best possible uses.

It's important to note that not all planted trees manage to survive and grow to maturity. The overall success rate of our tree planting efforts exceeds an 80% success rate. Between three to five years, the mangrove trees we have planted will produce propagules (baby mangrove trees), leading to natural regeneration. Various studies have indicated that the initial survival rate combined with the regeneration process has resulted in an impact between 150% to 500% success rate. We choose our partners carefully for all of our tree-planting initiatives, and we make efforts to ensure that these high survival rates are obtained.

Black Label UK's Print A Tree Project is not a registered charity. Our Print A Tree Project is the name given to our environmentally-friendly project whereby we plant trees and offset carbon.

Black Label UK is a multi-award-winning print and design agency from Derbyshire in the UK.
We operate with a standard business model apart from making active donations with every order we process. We wouldn't register as a charity as that isn't our primary focus as an organisation. Instead, we are here to bring you the best quality of printed materials, promotional items, and garments whilst offering a world-class service in website design and builds, social media marketing, accessibility solutions, and design services.

The trees we plant as part of our community effort play a crucial role in removing carbon pollution from the atmosphere. All of the trees we fund will sequester carbon dioxide over their lifetime, making a valuable contribution to mitigating climate change.

For the purposes of our own reporting, the carbon sequestered by our trees is not taken into account through Black Label UK's Print A Tree Project.

Our carbon offsetting process is based on verified carbon credits, not estimations of carbon sequestration by trees in our partners' tree-planting sites. We only purchase carbon credits from the most reputable carbon standards, such as Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard.

Although Black Label UK's Print A Tree Project will not stop climate change alone, it allows our customers to buy into a company committed to making a difference. There are billions of concerned people worldwide who care about our planet and actively want to make greener decisions. This is why we founded our Print A Tree Project; it allows individuals and businesses to choose a print and design agency that actively addresses the climate crisis.

Projects such as reforestation, renewables, efficient cooking stoves etc., have all ranked highly in climate change solutions, and these are what you will be supporting through the Print A Tree Project.

The more people that utilise the services offered by Black Label UK, the more impact we can make. It sounds simple to achieve. There's a fantastic opportunity to come from this, as we have already impacted a wide range of businesses across the UK who've also decided to take steps towards joining Ecologi.

This is another critical component of a responsible reforestation project. Our planting sites are monitored by independent third-party agencies to verify the number of healthy trees being reported.

Eden Reforestation Projects, our largest tree-planting partner, has an exemplary track record of meeting the reported numbers of trees. If you would like to view copies of these reports, please do not hesitate to contact them.

Whilst we would love to help you offset your business at this current moment in time we do not have the resources available to help all businesses that contact us. Due to this reason, we have decided not to help facilitate the carbon offsetting of other organisations.

We would however welcome you to join Ecologi if you want to play your own part alongside utilising the services available from Black Label UK.

At present, there is no fool proof method of preventing all forest fires. However, by collaborating with responsible tree-planting organisations, we can take measures to minimise the risk of such an event occurring. Mangrove plantations, which make up the majority of our tree planting projects to date, are planted in coastal wetlands and are far less susceptible to fire.

This is an important question that requires a well-thought-out reply. For that reason, we have enlisted support from Ecologi and their main tree planting partners, Eden Reforestation Projects. Below is their response:

• We work carefully with all levels of government to secure written agreements designating the restoration sites as protected in perpetuity. 
• We hire local villagers to plant the trees. In this way, we alleviate extreme poverty within the impacted community. The villagers now have an economic incentive to ensure the well-being of the restoration project. They also have a sense of “ownership” over the trees and restored forest and protect it with great care.
• A minimum of 10% of the trees planted are agroforestry species (fruit, fodder and construction species designed to provide food security and benefit legitimate human needs). Over time these trees become a source of sustainable income.
• We do all possible to supply the local villagers with alternative fuel sources (fuel-efficient dry wood stoves and solar parabolic stoves), reducing or eliminating their dependence on charcoal.
• We also hire forest guards as part of the labour force. Forest guards are part of the overall budget.
• Most significantly, we have seen the villagers fall in love with THEIR forest. They also recognise and benefit from the restored forest through an increase in fisheries, improved farming, cleaner water and micro-enterprises formation.

With all of this in mind, we make every effort to ensure that the same picture emerges across the board. We will not work with firms that do not put forth an effort to protect and grow the trees we are planting around the world.

Yes, planting indiscriminately diverse arrays of tree species is not a reliable or sustainable means of forestry management, particularly in regard to promoting responsible reforestation. To ensure the health of the local climate and biosphere, it is important to plant indigenous tree species that are adapted to the environment.

If we use our partner's tree planting sites in Madagascar as an example, they are planting over 50 different species, which include: Avicennia marina, Rhizophora mucronata, Ceriops tagal, and Bruguiera gymnorhiza

Avicennia marina

Avicennia marina, also known as the white mangrove, is a species of mangrove that is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. It is a medium-sized tree that grows up to 20 meters tall, and it typically thrives in brackish or saline water environments. The white mangrove has many valuable attributes, including its ability to stabilize shorelines and protect coastal habitats from erosion. It also provides a habitat for various animal species, and its leaves are used for feeding livestock in some areas.

Rhizophora mucronata

Rhizophora mucronata, also known as the black mangrove, is a species of mangrove that is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. It is a small tree that typically grows up to 10 meters tall, and it thrives in brackish or saline water environments. The black mangrove has many valuable attributes, including its ability to stabilise shorelines and protect coastal habitats from erosion. It also provides a habitat for various animal species, and its leaves are used for feeding livestock in some areas.

Ceriops tagal

Ceriops tagal, also known as the Sunda mangrove, is a species of mangrove that is native to tropical and subtropical regions of Southeast Asia. It is a small tree that typically grows up to 10 meters tall, and it thrives in brackish or saline water environments. The Sunda mangrove has many valuable attributes, including its ability to stabilise shorelines and protect coastal habitats from erosion. It also provides a habitat for various animal species, and its leaves are used for feeding livestock in some areas.

Bruguiera gymnorhiza

Bruguiera gymnorhiza, also known as the roughened mangrove, is a species of mangrove native to tropical and subtropical regions of Southeast Asia. It is a small tree that typically grows up to 10 meters tall, and it thrives in brackish or saline water environments. The roughened mangrove has many valuable attributes, including its ability to stabilise shorelines and protect coastal habitats from erosion. It also provides a habitat for various animal species, and its leaves are used for feeding livestock in some areas.

For a planting site to be established, the indigenous population must have given its consent and benefited from the project.

The project was done with permission from the land's owners and the government in Madagascar, utilising a legal framework to ensure that no harm is done to the environment or culture.

Many benefits accrue to the local community due to the project, including approximately 2.4 million work days, fruit harvesting access, and other economic benefits associated with reforesting deforested territory.

Together with our partners, we are working to address one of the leading causes of deforestation: extreme poverty. Our partners' project sites employ local villagers, providing them with a reliable income and a deep connection to the land. This encourages the villagers to invest in the success and growth of trees, which they begin to love and care for. In addition, all of our employees are paid at least the required minimum wage, regardless of the number of days they work. They also receive a full month off from work each year. As a result of their employment with our partners, their Malagasy employees are also receiving government health care and retirement funds.

The vast majority of our village employees' work with our partners is providing them with their first cash-paying job. This income is transformative for them, allowing them to pay off debts, earn freedom, send their children to school, and start micro-enterprises. All of our partners care deeply for those who work at our project sites and have wonderful relationships with them. When we hear of needs within our planting communities, we do whatever we can to assist. Together with our partners, we have dug wells to provide clean water, equipped villages without access to electricity with solar panels and fuel-efficient stoves, and provided emergency medical assistance to people experiencing life-threatening conditions. We have even built two schools to educate children who no longer have to work daily to help their parents make ends meet.

By working directly with each community to establish planting sites and strategies, our partners ensure that the local communities feel a sense of commitment and ownership. Through employment, the need to cut down the forest is eliminated, allowing the community to focus on restoring their environment while still earning a living wage. Over time, the impact of the restored land continues to increase as fisheries improve, water tables replenish, and biodiversity returns.

To help support our answer to this question, we approach Ecologi to form the following response.

Remember the acronym VR-LAMP. Breaking this down letter by letter, you can see the response to this question below:

• Verifiable: Third-party verification must be continuous throughout the project's life to ensure that it makes the claimed emission reductions.
• Real: There is evidence that this initiative will reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• Leakage: This is to avoid project-related problems that might occur due to the operation. For example, a project that reduces emissions in one location but raises them in another would be termed "leaky."
• Additionality: This criterion ensures that the avoided emissions would not have happened without being financed via the carbon offset market. A third party must make this decision.
• Measurable: To be certified, a project must be precisely measurable.
• Permanent: The project must fulfil a set of requirements to ensure that the emissions reductions are permanently avoided from entering the atmosphere.