Our Commitment to Sustainability

GME is committed to protecting and preserving our environment and we are honoring that commitment through the The Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project and the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.

Protecting and preserving our environment is more important now than ever. Not only does it benefit us, but it will continue to benefit future generations. We know that just talking about sustainability isn't enough - that actions speak louder than words - and that's why we're putting a renewed focus on sustainability.

In 2021 GME set out with the goal of becoming a sustainable, carbon-neutral organization. We compiled a team of leaders from throughout our company to analyze every aspect of our business - from offices and warehouses to vehicles, shipping, and travel - and how we could offset our carbon footprint. Through our partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, we were able to purchase carbon credits and offset our carbon footprint by 100%. We've taken our commitment a step further with a multi-year partnership with Arbor Day Foundation to ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect humanity's most important asset - our planet.

"Our company has always thought about ways to be more sustainable. From having one of the first net-zero electricity commercial buildings in our county at our previous headquarters to replacing the lighting in all of our facilities to higher efficiency LEDs with motion sensors, we have always worked to be effective stewards. In the last few years, we've learned more about ways to close the gap further on processes that are difficult to completely engineer out of the business. Finding a way to completely offset our footprint became our goal in 2021. By the end of the year, we found tremendous partners to help with both a comprehensive audit and a path to the necessary carbon offsets."

- Caleb Messer, President, GMES

The Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project

Our purchase of carbon credits will allow GME, through its partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, to provide positive impact through the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project.

The Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project is a pioneer in wildlife conservation that protects over 200,000 hectares of dryland forest with over 11,000 wild elephants that live in this ecosystem (2000+ of those elephants call Rukinga their permanent home). The project provides social programs that impact over 116,000 local people and provides the local community of the Kasigau Corridor region with long-term jobs that replace unsustainable sources of income such as poaching, subsistence agriculture and illegal tree harvesting. In an area where wildlife and human survival were at odds, the project has created a market-driven solution to wildlife conservation through an expansive community-led, community-based conservation model, with profound and lasting impact.

The Mississippi Alluvial Valley

In addition to the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project, we're also supporting the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. For this project, the Arbor Day Foundation partners with GreenTrees® to restore degraded agricultural lands back to their original and highly beneficial forest ecosystem in the lower Mississippi River Valley. Through this program, 130,000+ acres of land have been replanted and managed through partnerships with over 600 private landowners. 50+ million trees have been planted - 5.3 million trees from 26 different species have been through the Arbor Day Foundation with 10 million more trees to be planted. And, 5+ million metric tons of carbon credits issued by the American Carbon Registry, via 12 successful ex-post verifications.

Sustainable In Everyday Life

In addition to the large scale projects we know that every small step can lead to significant impact. Some of the things we've committed to in our daily business activities include:

• Utilizing high-effeciency LED lighting in all of our offices and warehouses.
• Motion sensor lighting throughout all offices and warehouses
• Providing reusuable water bottles and refilling stations for all staff at all locations to reduce the number of plastic bottles used.
• Cardboard recycling in all of our warehouses.

About the Arbor Day Foundation

The Arbor Day Foundation has been inspiring people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees since 1972. And that simple mission has had a global impact. The Foundation has grown over the last 50 years to become the largest member nonprofit organization dedicated to planting trees. And in that time, they have worked with members, supporters, and a strong network of partners to plant and distribute nearly 500 million trees worldwide.