What steps has your organization already to made to turn out to be extra environmentally pleasant?
Vigilis Tree Shelters are dedicated to sourcing sustainable supplies the place attainable. You will need to us that our timber merchandise are PEFC and FSC Licensed, originating from responsibly managed forests that present environmental, social and financial advantages.
We’ve got additionally invested closely in researching and growing our personal vary of biodegradable Vigilis tree shelters. We’ve got invested over £500k in analysis and growth, laboratory testing over 750 samples for mechanical properties, weathering and biodegradation over a simulated 7-year interval. Our dedication to biodegradable tree shelters extends past this. We proceed to carefully monitor over 70 discipline trials throughout the UK, taking measurements and monitoring the shelters for power, flexibility and biodegradation to make sure our merchandise are functioning to the very best normal.
Vigilis Tree Shelters have a fleet of electrical autos which employees use for web site visits, decreasing our carbon footprint.
How are your merchandise sustainable? / Are you stocking extra sustainable merchandise?
Vigilis Bio shelterOur Vigilis-Bio biodegradable tree shelters are constituted of bio-based derivates (potatoes, wooden & corn) and a customized biodegradable polymer. No plastics are used within the manufacturing course of and fewer carbon is emitted throughout the manufacturing course of. They’re soil biodegradable, due to this fact, they are going to embrittle, fragment and biodegrade onsite – solely water, minerals and biomass will stay after biodegradation. That is the best way ahead for a sustainable forestry business and to deal with the massive plastic air pollution problem that we face with polypropylene tree shelters.
Are you implementing any additional adjustments to proceed decreasing your carbon footprint?
We’re dedicated to decreasing our carbon footprint throughout the entire enterprise, spanning to our on-line presence. We’ve got constructed an internet site with low carbon emissions which is 89% cleaner than different comparable web sites
We’re phasing out polypropylene tree shelters and we’re dedicated to solely supplying Vigilis-Bio biodegradable tree shelters inside the subsequent few years. It’s not environmentally or socially acceptable for standard tree shelters to be left within the setting after use as they are going to find yourself as microplastics within the soil. Whereas, biodegradable tree shelters will fragment and supply a meals supply to soil microbes.
What have you ever discovered to be the largest problem in going greener?
One of many largest challenges has been transitioning from polypropylene tree shelter manufacturing to biodegradable tree shelter manufacturing. The entire manufacturing course of is completely different, requiring funding in state-of-the-art equipment, specializing in smaller manufacturing runs and utilizing customized supplies.
Gaining belief inside the forestry business is one other problem: biodegradable tree shelters are comparatively new to the market and a large selection of suppliers have now began manufacturing them from a wide range of completely different supplies. Nevertheless, the efficacy of biodegradable shelters is considerably debated inside the business. To deal with this problem, we now have undertaken rigorous laboratory checks and discipline trials to validate efficiency and benchmark biodegradable tree shelters towards their conventional counterparts. Going forwards, business requirements have to be established to instil confidence within the high quality of biodegradable merchandise and that is one thing we’re working in the direction of.
