With their speakers clocking up thousands miles of air travel across the globe each year, The London Speaker Bureau is now making an effort to reduce the effect of its carbon emissions.

Each month the bureau contributes to the planting of trees in the National Forest. In recognition of this, it recently attended a tree-planting ceremony where it made its own contribution to the development of the Forest.

“We think it is an important issue that companies should take seriously,” said director Brendan O’Connor. “We want it to become part of our brand identity.  We recognise that our clients are environmentally aware individuals as well, and we want to respond to that.  It is something that employees readily identify with, so it a good way of creating loyalty and team spirit.”

In 2006 the Forestry Commission, in conjunction with the National Forest Company, purchased two sections of agricultural land at Ibstock in Leicestershire to create new community woodlands as part of the National Forest.

The forest covers 200 square miles in the heart of England, taking in parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire, in what was previously one of the least wooded regions in Britain.

The London Speaker Bureau’s first contribution was to a forest in Northumberland in 2005. That forest has now been fully planted.