Oktra and Cool Earth Move Towards a Greener Future

Cool Earth are a climate charity founded in 2007, who work alongside local community partnerships in the world’s most threatened rainforests in Peru, Cameroon, Congo, Mozambique, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea.

By supporting local and indigenous knowledge, Cool Earth help develop innovative ways to address threats to the forest while making communities stronger and more resilient. So far, Cool Earth has worked with 8,500 rainforest partners across 13 partnerships, in six countries worldwide.

Despite only covering 3% of Earth’s surface, rainforests are our life support system, keeping the world’s climate in balance. Rainforests all over the world store a quarter of the world’s carbon, hold one fifth of all freshwater and are home to over six million species of animal and plant life. Of the world’s currently remaining rainforest, 46% is fragmented, 30% is degraded and only 24% is still intact. Protecting rainforests is one of the most important actions we can take against climate change, supporting the 350 million people that live in the rainforest and preserving the wildlife who call this habitat home.

To keep our rainforests standing, Cool Earth puts people first and invests in local communities, ensuring they can build up sustainable sources of income which prevent deforestation. Community-led conservation is more important than ever: neither fences nor reserves will be as effective as empowering indigenous people to protect their rainforest.

As leaders in the design and build industry, Oktra know the impact that construction can have on our natural environment, and as part of our commitment to sustainable practices, we’ve promised that for every workspace Oktra delivers, we will make a donation in our client’s name to sponsor 10 carbon-storing, wildlife-homing and rain-making trees for a year. Clients will receive a certificate to mark their commitment, and our continued progress will be tracked on our website’s dedicated sustainability page.

On top of the 12,240 trees we’ve already protected with Cool Earth, we want to continue to do more than incorporate sustainable measures in our day-to-day office activities and projects: it’s time to build a greener future.

Learn more about Cool Earth’s community partnerships here.