The Bristol Port Company is always striving for new initiatives to make the dock estate greener, therefore, as part of Port’s journey towards Net Zero, we have pledged to plant a tree for every employee.
With the support of North Somerset Council who kindly provided the Port with over 500 trees under the Forestry Commission’s Local Authority Treescapes Fund and Government’s Nature for Climate Fund, we are delighted to have started phase one of our pledge.
The initial tree planting finally took place on Saturday 19th February 2022 after several cancellations due to adverse weather conditions. We invited employees to bring their families for an afternoon of tree planting fun to which 16 volunteers came along and planted 120 trees!
In keeping with the local ecosystems, the plan is to plant a mix of native trees in small areas of woodland and hedgerow in a few locations around Royal Portbury Dock, including in Vole City and bordering the bridleway/cycle path around. Native tree species include Silver Birch, English Oak, Rowan, Hornbeam, Common Alder and Hazel. The trees planted around the Port are particularly valuable as they can provide multiple benefits to the environment as well as the people, such as carbon absorption, air quality screening, flood protection and support for wildlife and biodiversity.
Given the success of the volunteer tree planting session, we hope to organise another later this year when a further 300 or so trees will be planted around the dock estate in November/December.
