A TREE planting campaign has celebrated doubling its pledge to plant one million trees by 2020 with a fascinating photography exhibition at Thorp Perrow Arboretum.

Five years ago Yorkshire Tea set out on its mission – and has reveals it has more than doubled its original pledge, planting a total of 2,155,067 since 2014.

This milestone marks the end of the Yorkshire Tree initiative which pledged to plant 500,000 trees in the UK with the Woodland Trust and 500,000 in Kenya with tea farmers. Over the course of the last five years, a total of 1.6 million trees were planted in the tea growing regions of Kenya.

To celebrate the achievement in style, Yorkshire Tea took over Thorp Perrow Arboretum, Bedale, for one night only to unveil a photography exhibition with a difference – an immersive display projecting the faces of those involved in the tree-planting project onto trees.

The projections featured volunteers from the Woodland Trust and several Kenyan tea farmers, taken by photographer Jonathan Gregson.

Commenting on the milestone, Simon Hotchkin, Head of Sustainable Development at Taylors of Harrogate said: “Trees are proper important to us here at Yorkshire Tea, so we’re delighted to announce that we’ve exceeded our latest target by over a million trees.

“But we didn’t get here on our own. Over 90,000 school children in the UK and 4,000 tea farmers in Kenya – along with countless others - have helped us over the past five years, so what better way to mark the milestone than celebrating many of the people who helped us get here?

“We invited the amazing folk who featured in our gallery along to see their faces projected on to trees and their reaction was incredible, particularly the local schoolchildren. When we launched the initiative back in 2014, our aim was to help children understand the importance of trees and inspire a future generation to care for the environment, so their excitement was fantastic to see.”

Yorkshire Tea has been planting trees for almost three decades and is committed to having a positive impact on the environment and tea-growing communities. This, alongside the tree planting initiative, has contributed to all Yorkshire Tea products officially becoming CarbonNeutral® from field to shelf.

Simon Hotchkin adds: “We’re proud that all of our products are now CarbonNeutral® and it is initiatives like our Yorkshire Tree campaign that have helped get us here. Trees will always be proper important to us and we’ll be continuing to work with our charity partners to plant them for years to come!”

For more information about Yorkshire Tea’s tree planting initiative, visit: www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/yorkshire-tree/