Image Wear and Carboreal – collaboration for sustainable development

Image Wear has been working with Carboreal Oy for a few years now to sequester carbon, which removes an amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere equivalent to the company's emissions. Carboreal is a Finnish carbon sequestration company that offers corporate customers services to offset carbon dioxide emissions while promoting sustainable development. The collaboration aims to create positive climate impacts and promote environmental well-being.

Benefits of afforestation

Carboreal's business is centered around planting diverse new forests on uncultivated fields in Finland. The method is externally verified, ensuring that the planted areas produce a calculated domestic carbon sequestration. Afforestation generates both environmental and social benefits.

Environmental benefits of afforestation:

• Ecosystem diversification: The new forest provides a habitat for numerous plant and animal species.
• Supporting pollinators: A diverse selection of tree species provides food for pollinators earlier in the spring.
•  Reducing erosion: Forests reduce erosion and help mitigate climate change.
• Reducing soil emissions: Former arable land is converted into forest, which reduces soil emissions.

Social benefits of afforestation:

• Employment: Afforestation projects create jobs for local operators all over Finland.
• Economic benefits: Cash flows remain close, which boosts the national economy and increases tax revenue.
• Terrestrial Owners' income: Landowners receive income from their previously unproductive fields.
• Job Planted forests offer new recreational areas, such as hiking, berry picking and mushroom picking.
  

Water bodies also benefit from afforestation

Afforestation projects improve the water absorption capacity of afforested areas, which increases the amount of groundwater. A diverse forest also improves the condition of water bodies by reducing nutrient loading compared to agricultural use of fields. Forests act as nature's own "air conditioning system", cooling the air and increasing humidity at the same time.

Creating environmental benefits from cooperation

"Finland needs new forests, because as the tree population ages, its carbon sequestration capacity weakens. A new forest planted on peatland sequesters carbon in the long term and also reduces soil emissions. At the same time, the condition of the water bodies in the areas surrounding the afforestation sites will improve. The collaboration with Image Wear is a great example of how responsibly Finnish companies are investing in domestic climate action," says Janne Saarikko, Chairman of the Board of Carboreal Oy, opening the collaboration.

Image Wear's Development Director Kati Tukiainen says about the choice of partner: "As a Finnish family business, we want to take concrete climate action at home. The new forests planted at our expense in Salla and Tornio are a concrete example of how we offset our carbon dioxide emissions with practical actions."

The collaboration between Carboreal and Image Wear enables climate emissions to be offset in a close, proven and environmentally beneficial way. Planted forests create new carbon sinks far into the future, reduce nutrient loading and create new revenue streams for both landowners and forest management operators.