GRI plants 450 rubber trees as it launches ‘Greening Our Planet’ initiative

GRI has always prioritised social and environmental sustainability and takes the long view, looking beyond the obvious horizon. 8 October 2021 marked a very important day in GRI’s green leadership as it launched its ‘Greening Our Planet’ initiative by planting 450 rubber trees in the natural rubber estates of smallholder farmers in Moneragala, Sri Lanka.  

GRI’s Green X Circle initiative, which was launched in 2019 at Agritechnica in Germany, has gathered momentum during the last couple of years. “Our initial phase was about constructing a strong foundation with the natural rubber farmer in Sri Lanka and connecting with their communities. 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,” explained GRI CEO Dr. Mahesha Ranasoma. 

The vision behind the Green X Circle, which is a social leadership initiative is to combine these two farmer eco-systems and nurture the farmer communities to embrace sustainability into their actions whilst paying tribute and recognising their hard work to keep the world moving. This initiative is the first of its kind in the world.

As the activities to strengthen the Sri Lankan natural rubber farmer connection are accelerating, the second phase of the Green X Circle initiative has been initiated. “We are connecting globally with our business partners who are serving the agricultural farmers in their respective markets through a tree-planting program under the theme ‘Greening Our Planet’. This is an important step for us,” explained Dr. Ranasoma. 

Therefore, with the blessings, support, and sponsorship of GRI customers worldwide, GRI reached a historical milestone by launching a tree-planting program, which saw GRI planting 450 trees together with Sri Lankan farmers on their land. “We will augment the efforts of this initiative across our global markets by jointly working with our customers to conduct similar programs in their respective countries with the farmers as the next step,” Dr. Ranasoma elaborated further. 

GRI’s commitment to society and sustainability is embedded in the company’s Vision, which is “to move humanity towards making a positive impact on our planet” and Mission “to manufacture speciality tyres sustainably”. The activities implemented under the Green X Circle social leadership initiative are strategically aligned to GRI’s Vision and Mission.

“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,” said Dr. Ranasoma in conclusion.

GRI produces high-grade specialty tyres that are built sustainably using pure natural rubber in Sri Lanka. Founded in 2002, the company produces material handling solid tyres, radial agriculture tyres, and construction tyres. GRI has operations in nine countries, and a business presence in over 50 countries worldwide. Since 2018 GRI has been advancing in the rapid expansion of its specialty tyre production plants and tyre compound mixing facilities in Sri Lanka as well as its operations in key countries. GRI ensures its commitment to sustainability and environmental protection throughout its operations both locally and globally.