NEWS | Wednesday, 16 July 2008

Businessman to cover Malta in trees

David Darmanin

In a recent deal clinched with the Gaia Foundation, TipTop Group have agreed to fund the planting of a tree with every product sold at any of their furniture and sports equipment stores. The initiative is expected to sponsor the plantation of thousands of trees in a matter of months.
“If a customer buys 100 items, that customer will own 100 trees,” TipTop director Joseph Xuereb told BusinessToday in an interview published on this week’s edition (See interview). “Each tree will bear a personalised plaque and any fruits borne will be owned by the same customer.”
Xuereb has recently returned from a four-year stint in Thailand, where he intended to settle for retirement at age 40, only to end up investing in the cultivation of some 10,000 bamboo groves, coconut trees and a number of multipurpose water reservoirs.
Less than two months after his return, Xuereb decided to undertake this initiative in a bid to plant enough trees to absorb more Carbon than that emitted in the manufacture of the products he markets.
“Typically, business culture in Malta works in a way that if you come up with an original idea, every other company will want to do the same. In this case I hope the idea is taken on by others,” he said. In 2006, the company had sponsored the plantation of 200 trees in the Cottonera area as part of the 34U campaign.
“As soon as I came back to Malta I decided to develop this concept and let something bigger happen out of it,” Xuereb said.