Over the next three years, cooperative insurer and ICMIF member Achmea (the Netherlands) will be planting about one million trees as a further step on its path to fully climate-neutral business operations by 2030. Working with Land Life Company, Achmea has started a multi-year reforestation programme which it says will offset the CO₂ emissions of its operations.

Achmea has been offsetting its remaining CO₂ footprint since 2011 by purchasing carbon certificates. As part of its ambitious sustainability agenda, Achmea is currently investing in long-term offsetting with specific forestry projects in Australia, Iceland and elsewhere. Achmea is investing EUR 4 million in the Land Life Company reforestation programme.

Bianca Tetteroo, Chair of the Executive Board of Achmea: “As a cooperative insurance company, we want to contribute to a healthy, safe and sustainable society. We are doing this for our customers in many different ways, through our investments and of course by also looking at our own operations. We are well on the way to fully climate-neutral business operations by 2030. Step by step, we are reducing our CO₂ footprint with an ambitious sustainability plan which, among other things, addresses our energy consumption, mobility, waste flows. We offset our remaining CO₂ emissions in as natural a way as possible. Planting one million trees is, therefore, a great step. And furthermore, we are aligned with the ‘EU climate action and European Green Deal’, the European target to plant three billion trees by 2030.”

A healthy, safe and sustainable society

Land Life Company will plant about one million trees for Achmea during the next three years and this will restore about 920 hectares of degraded land in Australia and Iceland. Over the next forty years, these trees will absorb about 200,000 tonnes of CO₂. Biodiversity will also be restored as Land Life Company uses a range of indigenous trees. In addition, the projects offer benefits to local communities.

Achmea and Land Life Company alliance

Achmea has been the largest external investor in the reforestation company Land Life Company since 2020 through the Achmea Innovation Fund. In this way, Achmea’s Fund is supporting Land Life Company’s mission to restore two billion hectares of degraded land around the world. Tjeerd Anema, CEO of Land Life Company: “We were delighted when Achmea joined us as an investor last year to support our mission. It’s great that this agreement means that we can now also act specifically together in the field to actively remove CO₂ from the air and restore land.”