Deloitte is a joint founder of the United Bank of Carbon (UBoC), a UK registered charity that brokers partnerships between businesses and rainforest protection projects run by established NGOs.
Deloitte’s UBoC project partner is the African Rainforest Trust. Together we facilitate the Deloitte Rainforest Conservation Project (DRC) in Tanzania’s Rubeho Forest, a biodiversity ‘hot spot’ known as the ‘Galapagos of Africa’. The DRC is working to conserve the forest ecosystem and help improve local people’s livelihoods. Through the project we have:
- Planted 1m trees
- Protected 3,350 hectares of bio-diverse rainforest
- Trained 165 farmers in conservation agriculture
- Trained 172 teachers in environmental education
- Supported 380 households in using fuel-efficient stoves
This year we re-designed our corporate credit card to feature the Deloitte Frog (Nectophyrnoides deloittei), a species new to science that was recently discovered in the Rubeho rainforest. A proportion of all business expenditure on the card is donated to the DRC and this will continue into next year. The naming of the frog after Deloitte represents great recognition for our pioneering work in this ecologically unique and important ecosystem.
“The trip to Tanzania has certainly had a profound effect on both of us. We feel privileged to have witnessed first-hand the impact of Deloitte’s Rainforest Conservation project on preserving the rainforest and improving the local community’s quality of life. The people of Msimba and Kisanga were incredibly grateful for Deloitte’s funding. They hope, as do we, that our continued involvement will help to build on the great foundations that are now in place.”
Consultants Tom Struthers and Peter Thompson, winners of an internal competition to visit the Tanzania to see the project in 2012.
