Sustainable bell tent hire

Over the course of a summer we cover about 10 counties. You don’t have to be a genius to work out that equates to a LOT of miles over a 6-month period. And we’re doing that in some chunky ol’ vans.
And whilst we’ve made significant progress in reducing our plastic footprint over the last 2 years, we need to do more.

We’re lucky enough to work in an industry that celebrates happy moments in people’s lives, but at what cost to the outdoors that we love so much?

It’s been proven that one of the best ways to tackle climate change is to plant more trees and earlier this year we signed up to Offset Earth to do just that.

How it works?

We make a monthly financial contribution. This funds the planting of trees and supports other projects that work to remove greenhouse gasses or prevent them happening in the first place.

All projects are Certified as Gold Standard, which means they have been assessed to ensure the money is going where it should, and that it’s doing what it should.

This month’s project was to help build wind turbines in southern Turkey. Whilst this doesn’t remove existing CO2, what it does ensure is more electricity is coming from cleaner sources and thus reduces the CO2 that would have been produced by other methods, ie: fossil fuels.

The benefits of planting trees

Let’s keep it simple!

We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. There’s approximately 7 billion of us on the planet Earth at present – that’s a lot of breathing going on.
Tree’s breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. The exact opposite to us. It’s why you will sometimes hear the Amazon rainforest called ‘the lungs of Earth’. They are literally keeping us alive.

The amazing side effect of planting trees is that they also provide a habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Madagascar

2 years ago, Steve I were lucky enough to visit Madagascar.
National treasure David Attenborough sold it to us, and as huge wildlife fans, we went for the Lima’s.

Without sounding cliched, it was life changing. But we left shocked at the deforestation that has occurred.

We all know it’s happening, but to see it first hand is a complete reality check.

Offset Earth are currently working with The Eden Reforestation Projects to replant trees in Madagascar. For us it was the deciding factor on who we choose to work with, as they will soon be replanting in areas that we saw decimated.

To date The Eden Reforestation Projects have created 2.6 million working days in local communities, and again we know from first hand experience just how much the Malagasy people need this.  

Beautiful Bells Forest

Over the coming months you’ll be able to see our forest grow by visiting our dedicated profile.

Our contribution pays to plant 48 trees a month, so by this time next year we’ll have close to 600 trees planted as a direct result of this.

The amount of carbon this offsets is a big step in our mission for sustainable bell tent hire.

Carbon neutral Vs Carbon postive

Carbon neutral will mean we are offsetting as much CO2 as we are producing, and Carbon positive will mean we are offsetting more than we produce.

This is the holy grail for us in sustainable bell tent hire, and what we are aiming for.

How do we work it out?

That’s the tough part. We’re basing our current contribution and the number of trees planted on the number of staff we have employed. But as we are a seasonal business this will change as we go into the busier season.

What else are we doing?

There’s lots more going on behind the scenes: Sustainable bell tent hire is not going to come from carbon offsetting alone.

From solar panels on our house feeding the power supply to the office, old stock being recycled and donated to charity and even our old blankets went to a dog rescue centre! And of course, one of our biggest impact was removing all airbeds from our stock over 2 years ago as we couldn’t justify the plastic going to landfill.

Are we just ticking the ‘green box’ for the sake of it?

No. Leave no trace was a big thing for us long before we ever started on the bell tent journey and whilst we are nowhere near perfect, we’re really trying.

With that in mind, we would love to hear from anyone who has other ideas on how we can make a difference and how we can bring sustainable bell tent hire to life.

Big love

Your resident tree huggers x