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Canada Life
CANADA LIFE INSURANCE
Fruits of Labour states Trevor Clowry, Co-ordinator, Bloomin Crumlin. “The Community Orchard project included over 1,200 fruit and native trees planted in private gardens and tree A partnership with Bloomin Crumlin saw Canada Life workshops to educate residents. The project Reinsurance contribute to a community will continue to provide fruit, improve air quality, increase local biodiversity and help tackle climate change for years to come.” Canada Life Reinsurance adheres to a CSR policy of investing by purchasing supplies directly for a project rather than making monetary donations. With that in mind, the 1,200 trees and supporting equipment were directly purchased from a small North Dublin tree supplier. Whilst the project was a significant logistical exercise the benefits are significant. “Over the course of 40 years we would expect each tree to sequester 1 tonne of carbon each which equates to approximately 1,200 tonnes,” says Fergus Cooney, Head of Sustainability, Canada Life Reinsurance. Recently a cargo bike has been sourced and handed over by Canada Life Reinsurance to help reduce journeys in the community that use fossil fuels. There are plans to roll out the tree planting project out across further communities in Dublin. Already a small project has been completed in Cabra in 2022 with a similar sized project to Crumlin planned for 2023. “Canada Life Reinsurance are delighted and honoured to be a partner with Bloomin Crumlin; their ability to bring a diverse group of highly motivated volunteers together to generate innovative ideas has made this an amazing experience for staff at Canada Life Reinsurance. With collaboration challenges are quickly turned into solutions.”
Canada Life Reinsurance has been supporting local communities in Dublin since 1992 and working with Crumlin community groups for the last four years. An initial project supporting a cycle bus programme, which encourages children cycling to school, led to the development of a partnership with the team in Bloomin Crumlin.
BLOOMIN CRUMLIN Bloomin Crumlin is a community-led greening initiative focused on enhancing streets, green infrastructure (parks, green spaces, grass verges etc.) and biodiversity in the Crumlin and Kimmage area. The group, run entirely by volunteers, works to enhance existing green spaces and look for further greening opportunities on streets that are accessible by all. They work using a bottom up approach and address areas of inadequate public greenery first.
They are enhancing the biodiversity of the area by improving habitats for native flora and fauna, creating environmental education resources for local schools, groups and adult training initiatives and working with residents to collectively develop a vision and long-term strategy or a greener area.
COMMUNITY ORCHARD The concept of Community Orchard was to offer and support residents from Crumlin with planting native fruit trees in their gardens, in many ways bringing the estates back to former times when they were established with an abundance of apple trees which have disappeared over time.
“Canada Life Reinsurance’s partnership with Bloomin Crumlin on the Community Orchard project was instrumental in its success, allowing the community to dream big in what could be achieved,”
