20,000 Trees with YDMT!

We are excited to announce that Illuminet has reached a unique and very green milestone – we have enabled the planting of over 20,000 native trees with Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) as part of our Treevolution initiative – and we are the first corporate partner of YDMT to do so. That’s over 360 trees per employee!

1 – Illuminet became the first corporate partner of YDMT to plant over 20,000 trees

We have been running our Treevolution initiative since 2019, when Greg Wood, CEO, set out to find a partnership with a charity that was just as enthused and passionate about the environment as us. On top of that, a charity that is helping improve the UK’s environment where it’s most needed.

Enter, Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust. A charity working to restore woodlands and create habitats and places for people to connect with nature in the Yorkshire Dales – the UK’s least wooded national park, with only 4% woodland cover.

“We wanted to work with advocates of the environment and people that are passionate about it and Yorkshire Dales [Millennium Trust] just came top by such a long way in that respect” – Greg Wood, CEO

2 – Greg Wood, CEO, Illuminet (left) and Michael Devlin, CEO, YDMT (right)

To mark this occasion, our team took the opportunity to spend a day volunteering with the Charity to physically plant some of the trees in the Dales.

Set in the rugged terrain of a wintery Yorkshire Dales hillside, surrounded by views of vast hills, viaducts and, as the fog lifted, mountains in the distance, a brave (and cold) group of volunteers set out on a mission to plant 100 trees in a day. Apart from realising how much hard work tree planting really is, the team were able to learn all about YDMT’s mission and the positive impact the partnership with Illuminet has had over the past 5 years.

3 – Illuminet, YDMT & Illuminet’s client, Hiscox

“As a local charity YDMT has an important job to do delivering local solutions to our biggest challenges yet – climate change, biodiversity loss and inequality in access to nature. We know that we cannot do this alone. That’s why our partnership with Illuminet, and other businesses, is so important.” – Michael Devlin, Chief Executive, YDMT.

Michael explained that YDMT’s goal is to double woodland cover over the next ten years. This will be achieved by working with partners, local landowners and volunteers, and taking a holistic approach to land management.

The milestone event took place in a third-generation farm who are working with YDMT to replace the dying ash trees and prevent further decline of wildlife.

We were joined by client, Hiscox, the specialist insurance provider, who came to join in with the volunteering effort. It’s clients like Hiscox, who had already contributed 27 trees to Treevolution just by working with Illuminet over the past few months. This has helped us reach our goal, just by choosing our services. Now some of the team have been able to see it in action, and together we have managed to plant 120 trees in one day!

“Next time I’m out here, I’ll be walking past [saying] ‘I planted that one!’” – Alex Mullings, Hiscox

3 – John Opsblum, CCO and Co-Founder, Illuminet (left) and Alex Munnings, 2^nd Line Engineer, Hiscox

The initiative works whereby, for every week a consultant works for us on a client project, Illuminet plant a tree with YDMT. Since starting Treevolution, we have grown our green ambitions and now run several initiatives, including fundraising for the charity through our annual Make a Difference Day, our litter picking event held at Holes Bay, Poole. To learn more about this initiative, please see here!

“If every company did what we do in the UK, we’d be planting 1.3 billion trees a year” – Greg Wood

Donations and volunteering are vital to YDMT’s success. The charity is almost entirely funded by voluntary donations and rely on volunteers to help with the smaller (but vitally important) woodland schemes. So far, they have planted 1.6 million native broadleaf trees, which is no mean feat, especially as the group learnt it can take years just to grow a sapling from a seed.

Thanks to Alex Mullings, Steph Bateman, Nardeep Malli, Greg Wood, John Opsblum, Darren Trussell, Richard Holling and Judith Opsblum for volunteering for the day.

Thanks to Michael Devlin, Richard Hore, Chris Lodge, Carol Douglas, Eva Irving and Aila Taylor for hosting us.

Watch our journey in action! Check out more photos below, along with the full video of our tree-planting day and see how we’re making a difference: