Bradken Coimbatore Planting Tomorrow’s Forests

While Bradken encourages each step toward a more sustainable world, some teams are going above and beyond to improve their communities.

Surrounded by the Western Ghats mountain range in southern India is our foundry in Coimbatore.

Bradken acquired the manufacturing unit and its sprawling 45 acre lot in 2016. Along with larger environmental projects such as their use of renewable electricity, the Coimbatore team are greening their community.

In the last 13 years they have planted over 3,000 trees. While some of these have succumbed to strong winds or been relocated for building expansion, each one was hand-planted by site employees.

This June alone, to celebrate World Environment Day, they planted 200 trees in a compact area of 300 square feet, among 150 that were previously planted. This is called the ‘Miyawaki Method’ and helps create a dense organic forest that will be fully established in as little as 20 years.

They’ve used a diverse mix of species such as alstonia, simarouba, terminalia and bamboo, to mimic a natural forest instead of a regular monocrop plantation. The saplings shoot up more quickly to reach the light, and the canopy naturally prevents weeds.

This forest becomes a self-sustaining ecosystem that provides environmental benefits such as enhanced biodiversity, improved soil quality, increased carbon sequestration, and overall ecosystem resilience.

“I'm in the process of naming each tree and keeping track of them. It’s been a long journey since 2009,” says Senthil, India’s Safety and Sustainability Manager who has worked with passionate colleagues to implement the greening.

The Coimbatore area is both a major manufacturing hub as well as being home to threatened species such as Indian elephants and bears who rely on the right biodiversity in the region to survive.

Greening their site as well as contributing to the regeneration of their local area indicates a long-term commitment to environmental conservation. But to the Bradken Coimbatore team, it’s just the right thing to do to take care of your community for future generations.

At Bradken, we recognise that sustainability is critical to the future success and longevity of our business.  It’s important to our employees, stakeholders and customers that we care for our planet which is why the business has committed to becoming carbon neutral for scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030.