The Viatek Group is a services-based organisation, offering tailored business solutions in print, telephony and all aspects of IT. Viatek practice and promote sustainability by recycling, conserving energy, preventing pollution, minimising waste and through supporting tree planting in Victoria. General Manager Peter Bull has been a supporter of Fifteen Trees since 2014. This year he has generously added to his tree portfolio with another 330 trees for us to plant on his behalf. This year, the trees were planted by Nicole Howe across 2 sites: Reedy Creek (210 trees) and Huntly Kindergarten (110 trees).       Peter and the team understand that “being green is not just a potential competitive business advantage, it is also a good way to reduce costs and create more streamlined business processes”.  

 

Our aim is to ‘bring back the bush’ and in doing so create habitat for native fauna and increase connectivity across our landscape with other bushland and waterways. The corridor of 210 trees will link vegetation on 2 properties to with remnant roadside vegetation and beyond to Reedy Creek 800m to our south. Huntly Kindergarten run a weekly Bush Kinder program engaging kinder kids in 3 hrs of nature play.  Children play, explore, discover, wonder and learn in the bush together watching the seasonal changes and learning about native flora and fauna.  They build cubbies, climb trees, search for bugs, balance on logs and jump in puddles – all the things that are the foundations of building healthy, curious, resilient, environmentally-conscious human beings. Our current bush site is a plantation from the 1980’s and although some trees are indigenous, many are native to WA, and there is a large area at one end of the site dominated by the environmental weed Gazania.  The children have been learning about the importance of indigenous flora and the threat of weeds such as Gazania.  They have enjoyed being part of our ‘Gazania Gang’ over the last few weeks and digging the weeds out in preparation for our planting day.  On the day they worked together beautifully to plant, guard and water the 110 indigenous natives at the site and look forward to watching them grow – in fact some children were observed staring down into the tree guard wondering why their plant hadn’t started growing immediately! Many thanks to Fifteen Trees and Viatek for the plants. Nicole Howe | Secretary | Northern Bendigo Landcare Group  

  Corporate social responsibility can take many forms but for us … tree planting hits a number of targets! Community groups benefit as they receive free trees for their projects. The environment benefits as trees mean habitat for the native insects, birds, reptiles and mammals. And companies benefit too. ‘Through CSR programs, companies can help society while boosting their own brands. Corporate social responsibility can boost morale and can help both employees and employers feel more connected with the world around them’ (www.investopedia.com). Thank you once again Peter and the Viatek team from Central and Western Victoria. Sláinte – Colleen