Hi guys,

I work as a CSR Manager for a medium sized company and are just interested to hear any ideas regarding what initiatives our company can realistically do to help promote biodiversity or ecological restoration?

The company sells print solutions so my obvious though would be to ensure all of our paper is sourced with the highest standard of sustainable forestry certification. However this is very difficult to get approved, as there is a price premium.

We do have an allocation for staff to volunteer in work time (planting native trees/plants perhaps but where?). Our resources might be better pumped into a a specialist biodiversity charity in terms of funds - but this is the hardest to sell to the board! To be honest I feel like I've been banging my head against a brick wall since I started the job.

I believe that the value of biodiversity to society and the economy is massively underestimated and would be very interested to hear your thoughts, ideas and opinions on what companies (particularly in such relevant industries) can do. It might be that it's impossible for such a company to make a positive difference whilst under obligation to maximise returns to shareholders. In which case I might sack of the whole CSR thing and write a book on why it is a load of hot air and how the government needs to act to change it.