IVIRMA, the Forest of Life is born in 28 days

"We would like to offset the company's Scope 3 emissions by creating a corporate forest". With this message, sent on 13 May 2022 at 13.32 CET, the relationship between IVIRMA and Reforestum began.

In less than 24 working hours, which is the Service Level Agreement (SLA) that Reforestum has imposed internally to respond to messages received via the website form, the commercial department contacted Victoria Vila Vilés, Head of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at IVIRMA (better known as Vicky).

"We wanted to carry out a significant internal action on 5 June to commemorate World Environment Day and from our area we pushed for an action related to carbon offsetting. We knew we were very short of time, but we had the corporate conviction and commitment that we wanted to do it and Reforestum gave us the confidence that we could do it with them," says Vicky.

IVIRMA, as a leading company in the research and science of assisted reproduction committed to the present and future of the planet and society, has a vision of sustainability in which the environment is one of the four fundamental pillars, as reflected in detail in their sustainability reports published annually since 2018.

In recent years IVIRMA has implemented measures aimed at measuring and reducing the environmental impact of the company's activity in accordance with its Quality Management System Policy and Environmental Policy. In addition to carbon footprint offsetting actions, IVIRMA is clearly committed to measuring and continuously improving its Scope 1 (non-renewable fuel consumption) and Scope 2 (energy consumption) emissions.

In the virtual meeting held on 18 May, Vicky explained IVIRMA's requirements to Reforestum: "As a global company with many centres around the world, we were going to focus on the footprint derived from the corporate travel and trips made by the group's staff in 2021, which had resulted in the emission of 216 tonnes of CO2e. We wanted to focus on local reforestation in Spain, which is the germ where the first IVI was born, but with a global impact, hence we divided the shares according to the number of clinics globally".

Once the requirements were known, Reforestum presented several options that might fit and on 30 May Vicky communicated the decision to finance a shared forest in the Calahorra de Boedo project. This is IVIRMA, the Forest of Life, a forest in which 1,100 trees of 17 different native species were planted in autumn 2020, with a capacity to capture 216 tonnes of CO2 in 40 years.

"Everything had to be ready by 12 noon on 3 June, as Environment Day fell on a Sunday," recalls Vicky. "In order for the initiative to have more impact internally, we thought it was a fantastic idea to use the potential of the Reforestum platform so that all IVIRMA centres would be represented in The Forest of Life".

Reforestum, aware that fulfilling commitments in a timely manner is the basis for building lasting relationships of trust, accelerated the machinery from the moment the confirmation from IVIRMA was received.

Thus, in less than 72 hours it was possible, on the one hand, to define the internal communication plan for the initiative and, on the other, to digitalise IVIRMA's corporate profile on the forestry platform and the Forest of Life divided into Forest Shares of 174 square metres corresponding to each of the 62 IVIRMA centres.

The teamwork of the two companies, the coordination, the energy and, above all, the mutual trust between IVIRMA and Reforestum were the keys to making this project possible in such a short time. "We are happy with the advice and support we received to launch the initiative. What we value most, of course, is the speed and visibility that can be given to the project thanks to the platform", says Vicky.

This is how the collaboration between IVIRMA and Reforestum was born. And, most importantly, both brands intend to continue walking together on the path to protecting the planet and stopping climate change.

We will keep you informed of the latest updates.