Not a tree. A photograph.

A tree that is planted and not tended is not a tree. It is a photograph.

There is an easy version of a corporate plantation programme, and most organisations run it. You plant a few hundred saplings on a morning that suits the calendar, you photograph it properly, you publish the number, and then you move on to the next thing. It costs very little, it looks good in an annual report, and it proves absolutely nothing.

We decided not to run that version, and the reason is uncomfortable enough that it is worth saying in public rather than burying in a policy document. Saplings die. Anyone who has ever run a plantation programme knows they die. A first-year survival rate well below the number planted is completely normal and is not a scandal. The scandal is pretending otherwise by only ever publishing the number that was true on day one.

So Green Legacy measures survival rather than planting.

Every planting event is recorded with the site and its coordinates, the species and the count of each, the nursery the saplings came from, and the name of one specific person who is responsible for aftercare. Somebody goes back at three months, at twelve months, at twenty-four months, and every year after that. The twelve-month figure is the first one we publish.

It will always be less impressive than the planting figure. That is precisely why it is the one worth publishing, and it is the commitment we would rather be held to.

And to be completely clear about it: if we ever reach a point where we are unwilling to publish a bad number, this programme will have stopped meaning anything, and we would rather you held us to that than took our word for it.

greenlegacy@iffgroup.com

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