Forterra

 

We are in a climate emergency. Rising greenhouse gasses and temperatures have very real effects on our communities. The intrinsic connection between our environment, land, and people makes it impossible to address the climate crisis without also addressing the people impacted by it. Our partner, Forterra, recognizes this. 

 

Fostering land-based solutions to address the climate crisis, locally.

Forterra is an unconventional land trust that works across Washington’s communities and landscapes, from the ranches and shrub-steppe of central Washington State to the estuaries, farms and forests of Washington’s coast, reaching more than 100 counties, cities, towns and rural communities. Working cooperatively with people and nature, Forterra drives land stewardship, management and planning; innovative programs and policies; farming and forestry approaches; community ownership opportunities; and development solutions.  It focuses on the connections between land and people. 

Forterra’s Evergreen Carbon Capture Program is one such effort. The program allows individual community members, companies, and organizations to calculate their annual carbon footprint. Using the calculated emission, individuals and companies can support Forterra in planting and maintaining trees that sequester carbon in cities and rural lands throughout Washington. 

Since 2017, we have partnered with Forterra’s Evergreen Carbon Capture Program as part of our commitment to being carbon neutral. As shared on our Corporate Practices page, we measure our operational greenhouse (GHG) emissions every year. We then purchase carbon allowances through Forterra for the equivalent of our carbon footprint. 

Additionally, Forterra hosts community tree planting initiative that give volunteers hands-on experience. Our staff has participated in tree planting since 2019, and together, Beneficial State and Forterra have planted 190 trees in Snohomish and South King Counties. 

Check out Forterra’s web map to see where we are mitigating our carbon impact while restoring local forests! 

 

We hold ourselves accountable. We are calling on all banks to do the same.

At Beneficial State, we recognize that measuring our carbon footprint and purchasing carbon allowances is important for sustainability, but we also recognize that it’s not enough. 

The work and programs of environmental sustainability organizations like Forterra highlight the deep connection between land and people. They provide community members with the opportunity to tackle a global problem locally in an impactful hands-on way. Our community members are not standing idly by, and neither can banks.

Banks must take action and stop perpetuating lending practices that pour money into industries that make ecological destruction possible. One way that we are holding ourselves accountable is by measuring the indirect carbon emissions of our lending portfolio so that we can take initiatives to reduce our portfolio’s emissions with the goal of achieving net zero in the future. Learn more about how we are measuring our financed emissions. 

We are proud to partner with organizations like Forterra, who are driving communities and businesses to take action to address the climate crisis, but they can’t do this alone. The environmental crisis has a very real and direct impact on our lives, and we must proactively work to reduce these emissions. If we as a global community do not act, the impacts will ultimately destroy our home planet. So, we are calling on our stakeholders to continue holding us accountable while calling on banks to hold themselves accountable.