Jun 15, 2026
A tree for every new colleague: how Artelia Denmark makes sustainability tangible
When an Artelia employee asked why new colleagues received cut flowers, it sparked an idea that grew into 700+ trees on a Danish island.
There is no shortage of ESG strategies in Danish business. What there is a shortage of, however, is strategies that employees actually feel in their day-to-day working lives. Research consistently shows that employees are placing increasing value on purpose and values when assessing their workplace. Not as a replacement for salary and career prospects, but as an additional layer of meaning. The question is how, as a company, you translate that into something more than words on a website.
Artelia is one of Denmark's largest engineering consultancies, working daily on the green transition for clients across construction, energy and infrastructure.
From bouquet to lasting impact
It did not start in the boardroom. It started with a suggestion from an employee.
In 2024, a colleague proposed that Artelia Denmark should stop giving new employees a welcome bouquet of cut flowers and instead find an alternative with a more lasting effect. The suggestion was taken seriously, and the outcome was straightforward: for every new employee who joins Artelia in Denmark, a tree is planted in the Margrete forest on the island of Orø in Holbæk Fjord. Today, Artelia's trees number more than 700 and grow with every new colleague who starts.
It is a small gesture. But it says something about how Artelia considers employee engagement within its ESG strategy.
Something you can see and touch
For Lars Hulsbæk, Executive Director at Artelia Denmark, it was important that the initiative was not merely symbolic in theory, but also physically accessible.
"What motivated us to partner with EcoTree was a desire to connect our strategic work to something physical, something tangible. A project that our employees could also relate to and see themselves in," states Lars.
That is precisely what sets this initiative apart from many other companies' sustainability efforts: it is not abstract. Marie Nisted Bøge, Sustainability Coordinator at Artelia Denmark, emphasises that the local dimension was central to the decision.
"It is really important to us that it was specifically on Orø, because it is a local, Danish initiative where employees have the opportunity to come out and see their trees and watch the forest grow and develop over time," underlines Marie.
Being able to visit your forest, your own tree, gives the initiative a personal dimension that few sustainability programmes can match.
One tree, many meanings
A tree for a new employee is more than an environmental gesture. It is a reflection of what Artelia wants to stand for.
The forest grows alongside the company. Each tree represents a new colleague putting down roots in a community. And the initiative sends a clear signal, both internally and externally: sustainability is not reserved for the advice given to clients. It is something the company practises itself.
"We work both to reduce our own carbon footprint and to advise our clients in the same direction, just as we work to increase biodiversity," says Lars Hulsbæk. Artelia Denmark's ESG strategy is ambitious, and the tree planting is one concrete initiative within that broader framework, not a substitute for the systematic work.
That distinction matters. Visible, tangible initiatives work best as anchor points for a strategy that is already genuine, not as window dressing for one that is not.
What can other companies learn from this?
This partnership illustrates three principles that apply broadly:
- It started with an employee.
The idea came from the ground up, and it is hardly a coincidence that it has also earned genuine buy-in from staff. Engagement is rarely created by rolling out a strategy from above. It is created when employees have had a hand in shaping it themselves. - It is concrete and local.
Abstract targets around carbon reduction can be difficult for individual employees to relate to. A tree in a forest you can visit is far easier to connect with. - It links the individual to the collective.
Each tree represents the arrival of a specific person, but also forms part of something larger. That balance, between the personal and the shared, is precisely what gives the initiative its emotional weight.
At a time when employees expect companies to mean what they say about their values, it is this kind of concrete, credible action that makes a difference. Not because it saves the climate on its own, but because it makes sustainability feel present and real.
Read more about Artelia Denmark's sustainability strategy on their website.
