VRR plants trees, but efforts to tackle emissions won’t stop there

VRR has recently planted trees. This was done in partnership with Trees for All, a recognised charity that plants new forests around the world, helps to restore degraded forests and raises awareness of the importance of trees.

The mission of this reputable Dutch organisation is to contribute to a better climate and to ensure more biodiversity and healthier living conditions. It’s a worthy aim that caught our attention when we started developing our sustainability strategy in 2022.

However, we’re also aware of the serious discussions on carbon offsetting and greenwashing. Could buying carbon credits deceive us into thinking we’re doing enough to reduce our carbon footprint? And what about the greenhouse gases that are being emitted today? Trees do absorb CO2, but they take many years to grow.

It’s an important environmental issue that has led to many interesting discussions at VRR. It also helps us direct our focus.

What VRR is doing to help reduce global emissions

We’ve decided to tackle the issue of greenhouse gases in two ways:

• Improve our energy efficiency to reduce our own emissions and become net-zero
• Develop products that help the air cargo industry reduce its CO2 emissions

To help us achieve these aims, we developed a sustainability strategy in early 2022. It builds on what we have been doing already and gives us targets for reducing our own environmental footprint.

We don’t underestimate the challenge ahead, but we’re committed to finding more sustainable ways to run our business and make our products. We’re also committed to being as transparent as possible about our efforts and achievements. In fact, we’ve made a start by measuring and publishing our greenhouse gas emissions for 2022.

Tree planting is good; reducing operational emissions is better

At VRR, we recognise that tree planting is a good thing when done responsibly, and we’re happy to be a part of this movement. However, we’ve decided to not include it in our net zero goals even though the planting was done to compensate for our emissions in 2022.

Instead, we’ll continue working hard to reduce our own operational CO2 emissions and develop products that offer more sustainable options. Our collapsible containers are a great example of how product development is already helping airlines and cargo carriers become more efficient and environmentally friendly.

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