Combating climate change has never been as simple as ABC – and for Falkirk-based commercial interiors company Amos Beech the route into sustainability has been a particularly intriguing one.
When Simon James, who had large experience in PLCs founded the firm in Bristol in 1990, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was still in its infancy and finding the right company for the right job was in the now improbably remote days of the looking up the Yellow Pages.
So it made sense for James to go with the moniker Amos Beech Company (ABC) – one that would leap to the top of a web search.
Scroll forward several virtual pages and the company, with a growing and impressive client base that included financial services majors such as Dun & Bradstreet and The Insurance Service – now Royal Insurance – relocated to Scotland in 1993 and reflected on both a new locale and a new branding as it expanded its portfolio of mainstream office furniture into high-end furniture and seating design.
“The company has always taken Corporate Social Responsibility seriously,” says marketing manager Vincent Hartman. “And we had a strong connection with trees as beech wood has been used in making worktops for years so the idea of planting new trees was’t just a matter of sitting down and thinking of a nice new scheme – it was a natural progression of the direction the company had been taking for several years.”
Amos Beech’s next important connection was with Trees for Life, a volunteer conservation charity committed to rewilding and restoring the ancient Caledonian Forest.
“Planting a young tree isn’t difficult but has to be done properly, looking at the right type of tree, location and growth,” says Hartman, adding that the same rules apply to interior design and fit-out. “Trees grow and so do companies,” he says. “But while an office interior will last some 10 to 20 years depending on changing industry demands or workplace ethics, what we are doing is sponsoring the planting of 13 trees for every 1000 sq ft of office space we refurbish and which will be there for future generations.”
The company now has 754 trees in its ‘grove’ which it intends to extend to 1000 in the next month, most in the 4,000 hectare Dundreggan Estate in Glen Moriston and including species such as Scots Pine, Rowan, Dwarf Birch and Aspen. Hartman explains: “The Amos Beech ‘grove’ is not specific to the trees planted by Amos Beech, it represent our contribution toward and it, the charity decides where the trees will be planted.
When product realisation company Plexus partnered with Amos Beech for the renovation of its site in Livingston, that resulted in 280 trees alone, with online tyre retailer blackcircles.com, independent energy consultants TNEI and Axon Cables all involved. The latter’s office space now equates to 80 new trees to be planted in the Caledonian forest, says Hartman, who stresses that the initiative is not used as a sales tool. “The important thing is that when we’re no longer here, the trees and the benefits they represent for the environment will be,” he says.
For more information on Amos Beech please visit their website www.amosbeech.com
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