Saving Forests for Future Generations

culture, behind the scenes

Saving Forests for Future Generations

B Corp’s Film Highlights Nonprofit Work to Protect and Preserve Mature Forests and Fight Climate Change

written by:hhadmindate published: Apr 04, 2022 content type: culture

A few years back, the leadership team at Hemmings House Pictures was exploring how to offset our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a film production company, we often find ourselves flying all over North America and the world to capture the stories we produce, which means we create a fair bit of GHG emissions from our air travel. We were thrilled to learn about a nonprofit right in our backyard called Community Forest International (CFI). They offered us the service of auditing our carbon footprint and allowed us to offset our GHG emissions by helping them purchase mature forests in our home province of New Brunswick, Canada. The organization purchases forest to keep the trees standing so they can do their job as a carbon vacuum. Companies like ours can help CFI purchase more hectares of forest by paying our own form of a carbon tax to support the necessary travel our business requires to grow.

New Brunswick is a province of trees, and the forestry industry has always been a major economic driver of this region. As a result, less than 5% of the forest remains in pre-colonial condition, and a very small amount of ecologically mature forest exists. CFI is helping to protect and preserve mature forests through land donations or purchase of woodlots from families at market rates to keep the wood from being clear-cut for lumber. One of the forests that they were able to purchase with the help of Hemmings House Pictures is the Robinson Conservation Forest in Cambridge Narrows, New Brunswick.

CFI also has operations in Tanzania’s Zanzibar islands, supporting people grow climate-resilient livelihoods in vulnerable communities. One such project is growing diverse and resilient spice forests. When CFI reached out to us and others in their community to help them reach their $100,000 goal to access EU funds to expand this agroforestry across the Zanzibar islands, we immediately wanted help. Incidentally, we had just become 1% for the Planet members and had some money burning holes in our pockets begging to support an environmental NGO. It felt good that a nonprofit from our own backyard was doing such important work in our own community as well as overseas.

Another commitment as a 1% for the Planet member company is to complement cash donations with pro bono services. When we reached out to CFI to see if they had any film needs, they explained that the forest that we helped finance was the focus of an intense study that supports the theory that the cash value of a tree standing is actually higher than the cash value when the trees are cut for lumber. The team wanted to capture their findings in a short film that would help their stakeholders understand the power of a standing tree in a mature forest. We were also able to interview Robinson, the former owner of the woodlot, to share a bit of the history and the importance of the Robinson Conservation Forest.

As a founder of a heart-centred company, a Certified B Corporation, and a 1% for the Planet member, I feel proud to be able to support great nonprofit teams that are doing the important work of protecting and preserving what is so dear to me and so critical for the future of our planet. My team feels the same way. We might even want to put a text card at the beginning of our future film productions that reads: “This Film Saves Forests.” I like the sound of that!