As part of its international brightFuture campaign and a sign of its commitment to take action against climate change, Unilever South Africa, in partnership with the Wildlands Conservation Trust, plans to plant one million indigenous trees in predetermined areas of South Africa over the next three years.

Tweeting for trees

Unilever will also raise the awareness of climate change with all South Africans by giving them an opportunity to play an active part in the campaign by either pledging or tweeting. For every pledge or tweet received, Unilever will plant one tree on behalf of that person. Pledges can be made at www.brightfuture.unilever.co.za and tweets should be addressed to @UnileverSA, using the hashtags #TweetForATree and #brightFutureSA.

“Deforestation is one of the leading causes of climate change globally and one of the most simple and powerful actions we can take to combat climate change is to plant more trees. Unilever is part of a large movement to eradicate deforestation, which contributes up to 15% of greenhouse gas emissions, and threatens 1.6 billion livelihoods. In 2014, Unilever signed the New York Declaration on Forests to end deforestation by 2030,” says Peter Cowan, chairman of Unilever South Africa. “At Unilever our purpose is to make a sustainable living commonplace whilst preserving the planet for future generations through initiative like this that educate and have immediate impact.”

Creating jobs

Unilever SA’s partner, Wildlands, will make use of one of their most innovative projects to grow and plant the pledged trees. Working at a community level, through a CEBA (Community Ecosystems Based Adaptation) model, the NGO has created a network of “Tree-preneurs” across four provinces, which gives unskilled people in poverty-stricken areas the chance to improve their way of life by growing and bartering indigenous trees in return for livelihood support, including food, building materials, bicycles, solar panels and rain water harvesting tanks. Unilever South Africa will provide product hampers to Wildlands which will be bartered with Tree-preneurs for trees.

“These trees, grown and planted by Wildlands, will help to reduce deforestation and alleviate flash flooding due to forest degradation, as well as promoting sustainable forest management and increasing tree stocks in local agricultural landscapes,” adds Cowan.