In Scoop’s forest, each employee has a tree

After last year’s drama in Portugal, Scoop, a textile company from Famalicão, decided to take its sustainable vocation a little further and create a small forest, where a tree is planted by each employee.

“The fires, especially in October, which have affected the region here, have inspired Scoop’s management to contribute to reforestation,” explains Daniel Pinto, director of business development and strategy for the textile company based in Cavalões and specializing in the production of technical and sports clothing .

In this small forest, still giving the first signs of life, each collaborator participated in the project by planting his own tree, which was then identified with his name and the year it was planted – in the photo, for example, the identification of the tree of Teresa Soares, quality controller in the company.

“Today I go down there to see my tree” has become a habitual phrase in the heart of the team. “For those who are in the company all day, it is also a distraction, it is the best therapy that can exist” says Raquel Carvalho, project manager at Scoop.

As the initiative has an ecological character, only native species of the North region, such as plantains, cork oaks, holly, Laurels/Bay or myrtles, are planted. Each tree is chosen individually in an attempt to create a diverse forest and to customize the recognition gesture. Raquel Carvalho, for example, received an oak in honor of her name.

But apart from the symbolic gesture, Scoop also sought to root out its partnership with the “famalicenses” firemen, who are already responsible for the drills in the company. In addition to being partners in various company projects, Scoop’s Administrations offered each of the employees the membership card annuity as a way to support the membership and contribute financially to the voluntary firemen association.

The forest, currently with 116 trees, grows side by side with another sustainable Scoop project: a biological garden with which it provides vegetables, soup, fruit, teas and herbs for all employees.