GRI continues Green X Circle with tree planting project

Last Friday was an important day for GRI in regards to its environmental engagements – the Sri Lankan tyre maker launched its ‘Greening Our Planet’ project by planting 450 rubber trees at smallholder rubber farms in Moneragala District.

The project comes under the umbrella of GRI’s Green X Circle Initiative, and the company says this has gathered momentum since its launch at the Agritechnica show in November 2019. “Our initial phase was about constructing a strong foundation with the natural rubber farmer in Sri Lanka and connecting with their communities,” shares Dr Mahesha Ranasoma, chief executive officer of GRI. “The broad concept of the Green X Circle is creating an interdependent truly end-to-end supply chain from the rubber tree and the rubber farmer to the agricultural farmer who uses GRI’s Green EX and Green XLR agriculture tyres globally, which are manufactured using the rubber produced by the farmer.”

According to GRI, the vision behind the Green X Circle is to combine these two farmer ecosystems and nurture farming communities to “embrace sustainability into their actions whilst paying tribute and recognising their hard work to keep the world moving.” The tyre maker notes that this initiative is the first of its kind in the world.

Second phase of Green X Circle

GRI’s activities to strengthen connections with natural rubber farmers in Sri Lanka marks the launch of the Green X Circle initiative’s second phase. “We are connecting globally with our business partners who are serving the agricultural farmers in their respective markets through a tree-planting programme under the theme ‘Greening Our Planet’. This is an important step for us,” explains Ranasoma.

The planting of 450 trees together with rubber farmers was facilitated by the support and sponsorship of GRI customers around the world. “We will augment the efforts of this initiative across our global markets by jointly working with our customers to conduct similar programmes in their respective countries with the farmers as the next step,” the chief executive officer elaborates.

GRI says Green X Circle is the first initiative of the kind in the world (Photo: GRI)

In line with GRI vision & mission

GRI’s has embedded its commitment to society and sustainability in its corporate vision, which is “to move humanity towards making a positive impact on our planet,” as well as its company mission “to manufacture speciality tyres sustainably.” It views the activities implemented under the Green X Circle social leadership initiative as being strategically aligned to both.

“It was indeed a joyful day for me and the GRI sustainability champions where we spent the day with our rubber farmers to launch the ‘Greening Our Planet’ program in Moneragala. We will keep this momentum in implementing further projects to enable sustainability, concludes Ranasoma.