Gibraltar telco firm Gibtelecom has planted over 600 native British trees at Pantpurlais farm, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.
In conjunction with the charity Protect Earth, Gibtelecom has now planted 12 species of native saplings, including 100 Silver Birch, 50 Common Alder, 25 Bird Cherry, and five Holly at the company’s plot on the farm, named Mount Pleasant after Gibtelecom’s Gibraltar data center premises.
Pantpurlais’ Darren Hudson said: “It’s good to see a company support biodiversity projects to help reduce their carbon footprint and even better that they provided ‘boots on the ground’ to support the effort.”
The Pantpurlais land, comprising of 9 hectares, has been split into sections specifically to create and restore a ‘mosaic’ of habitats including traditional orchard, wet woodland, oak woodland, and an acre of wildflower meadow.
Founded in 2001 through a series of mergers, Gibtelecom has operations and Points of Presence (POPs) in Gibraltar, UK, Dublin, Isle of Man, and Malta. Gibtelecom said it was looking to engage in similar environmental engagement projects in each location it has operations.
The company offers colocation services through its Rockolo subsidiary; the company operates 320 racks spread over two facilities in the British Overseas Territory. As well as its Mount Pleasant facility opened in 2007, the company operates around 100 racks in Gilbratar’s World Trade Centre.
While not as common as renewable efforts such as installing solar panels or Power Purchase Agreements, a number of telcos and data center firms are beginning to invest in forestation projects.
French telco Orange has invested in several carbon sink projects including pine tree reforestation in Spain, mangrove plantation in Senegal, and a reforestation project in France. Interxion recently announced it was sponsoring a new afforestation project in Palencia, Spain, following previous forestry projects in Madrid and France.
Other data center operators supporting reforestation or afforestation include QTS, which is working with American Forest on reforestation projects in the US, saying it will plant one tree per month for every 100 kilowatt (kW) customer agreement. In the Philippines, Converge ICT Solutions recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Aeta community here to adopt a two-hectare land for reforestation near Angeles City.
