Ricoh's tree-planting scheme highlights CSR difficulties

Sadly, it is pretty rare that a company sends its executives to developing economies to provide a first-hand check on the effectiveness of its CSR and emissions-reduction schemes. It is even rarer that it sends a journalist with them – particularly when they don't know what they are going to find.

So, on those grounds, printer maker Ricoh deserves plaudits for recently organising a trip to Tanzania to take a look at the success of its various environmental initiatives in the country.

As you may have guessed from that disclaimer, my trip to Tanzania revealed that those environmental initiatives, while well intentioned, are not going particularly well.

Ricoh's original high-profile tree dedication scheme saw the company commit to planting a tree for every 100,000 copies printed by its customers – an amount the company said would provide a genuine carbon offset against the energy used by the printer and paper.

Each new printer was fitted with an electronic counter designed to report to Ricoh when 100,000 copies had been printed. Each time the mark was passed, the company would pay for a new tree and email the customer an e-certificate detailing the offset.

Sadly, the programme ran into problems even before the effectiveness of the tree-planting programme was considered. Ricoh found that rather than encouraging customers to print less, the 100,000 target appeared to galvanise people to print more in an attempt to regularly pass the 100,000 barrier – hardly the point of a carbon-saving initiative.

"That, and concerns over the scientific effectiveness of carbon offsetting, caused us to re-evaluate the programme," admits Matthew Smitthurst, who works in marketing at Ricoh.

The scheme quickly re-emerged as a more CSR-focused programme that saw the company re-engage with charity Seeds for Africa, an organisation focused on the development and nutritional benefits associated with planting fruit trees in African communities.

Unfortunately, based on the evidence of my recent trip to some of the communities supported by Seeds for Africa, the project is still facing difficulties.

In their operations in Tanzania, Seeds for Africa uses a local organisation – known as Jema – to distribute and plant the trees it funds.

The trees go almost exclusively to schools, and mostly in areas around cities as it is too expensive to send volunteers further afield. Three types of trees are planted: those that provide shade; others for decoration; and fruit trees. The fruit trees are the core of the programme, but shade trees are needed to trap moisture and protect the soil, theoretically allowing fruit trees to grow underneath.

However, major problems with water supplies and security have resulted in decidedly mixed success in the schools we visited.

The fruit trees that have been planted tend to require more water to survive than can often be found in the schools' local environment. "Our big problem is water," said the headmaster at one school where a handful of fruit trees survived. "We don't need more trees; we need more water for them."

At Changayikeni school in the same area, only 20 out of the 50 fruit trees originally provided had survived – all because of drought.

Moreover, the trees are relatively expensive and, as a result, are often stolen from schools without security measures in place. In Jitihada school near Dar-es-Salam, only one fruit tree remained of the 50 that were planted by Jema.

"Ensuring security and water for the trees is very challenging," admits Damas Nderumaki, former co-ordinator of Jema. "The water they bring in at the moment is not safe and not enough."

The charity is investigating potential solutions. Water tanks can be provided for £500, which would collect enough water in the rainy seasons to help many of the fruit trees survive the tougher dry season. One school estimated it would need at least five such tanks to keep all the trees alive. Seeds for Africa is looking at partnering with another charity, Wateraid, to provide tanks, though nothing has been agreed yet.

Security can also be improved by funding dedicated guards or putting up fences around the schools – but again this comes at a cost.

All the headmasters and headmistresses agreed that the shade trees have been more effective, providing cover for both children and other plants, growing fast and proving far harder to steal. Everyone involved also agreed that the children love planting and maintaining the trees. "It definitely helps them think about the importance of the environment and what they can do to protect it," said one teacher.

But the high failure rates for the fruit trees are proving frustrating for all involved and it remains unclear how the issues are to be resolved.

One of Ricoh's goals for the trip was to evaluate the success of the project in Tanzania and to work out whether or not it was worth continuing to fund it.

It is considering providing further funding and tying it in with an upcoming toner cartridge recycling scheme that would see a tree planted for every 10 cartridges recycled by customers. But it wants to ensure the projects will be implemented and watered correctly before it makes any further commitment.

"It is better to have something that works, rather than something we talk about but doesn't work properly," said Smitthurst.

It could be argued, not unreasonably, that Ricoh should have undertaken more thorough auditing of the programme far earlier in the process. But like any supply chain, it is often difficult to monitor activity downstream – there were two organisations between Ricoh and the schools.

I may be being overly trusting, but I think the exercise indicates good intentions gone awry, rather than a deliberate attempt at greenwashing – and it begs the question of how many other firms are financing emissions-reduction projects that are simply not performing as originally intended.

Ricoh's experience should serve as a warning to any firm that has invested in emissions-reduction projects and not seen the results first hand.