Month: February 2024

We’re *just* a little excited to be in the top 25 of the 2024 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies. Being ranked by JUST Capital for seven years running—and being #1 among telecom companies—reinforces that the Network Life is built on strong values that matter. Thanks for making us proud, V Team.

Learn more: https://vz.to/3HP6RI6

We’re committed to making the world better than yesterday.

It’s a pillar of our Corporate Credo and a passion of our employees. And it’s why we’re using our technology and our assets to help build a brighter future – for our customers, for our communities, and for the world around us.

From carbon abatement to disaster recovery to bringing tech education to underfunded schools, we’ve made some tremendous progress so far. And we’ve set ambitious goals to tackle some of today’s most pressing societal challenges as we work to build our shared future.

Trees provide more benefits than meet the eye.

Not only do they provide a place for rest, shade, and a place to call home for countless organisms, but they provide a variety of environmental and mental health benefits.

However, communities may not even realize that they are lacking serious benefits from these multi-branch giants simply by not having them around.

“Not everyone realizes the extent of what a tree can do for a person and the environment,” says Pam Zipse, executive director of the New Jersey (NJ) Tree Foundation. “They benefit so many forms of life, and by being out in the community we can get people on board to plant more in their neighborhoods.”

The NJ Tree Foundation has been focused on planting trees in underserved urban communities for 26 years and has planted over 260,000 trees throughout New Jersey to date.

“Awareness of the benefits trees provide is a big part of what we bring to the community,” says Zipse. “We don’t plant in a community unless we have been invited to by the people who live there, so we know the residents want the trees and will take care of them.”

Extreme care is given to each tree planted so that it thrives in its forever location. Zipse’s team ensures that the right tree is planted in each place that won’t interfere with other infrastructure, such as power lines, or doesn’t block a sidewalk or street.

Outside of plantings, the NJ Tree Foundation actively engages with the community through its TreeKeepers program, a free course that empowers community members through accessible workshops on tree care.

“The relationship-building with the community is every bit as important as the trees themselves,” says Zipse. “Every planting is an educational opportunity, and we want to teach others not only about what we are planting, but also how to care for the trees going forward.”

The workshops combine education with hands-on activities, and participants leave the three-hour sessions with a wealth of knowledge, tree care tools, and the title of Certified TreeKeeper.

In 2023, Enbridge gave a $10,000 Fueling Futures grant to the NJ Tree Foundation as part of our commitment to supporting sustainability projects that help improve, grow and nurture our environment. The funding helps to support the creation of an education outreach coordinator role and aims to increase the number of TreeKeepers workshops from four to six this year.

“With every planting, it’s amazing to see the neighborhood come together, and neighbors talking to each other who may not have interacted otherwise,” says Zipse. “Witnessing the community that grows along with the trees is my favorite part.”

Every spring and fall, hundreds of volunteers sign up to join the NJ Tree Foundation in various tree planting efforts across the state. While planting new trees is an obvious goal and priority for the organization, Zipse stresses the importance of caring for existing trees.

“We need to be taking care of the trees that we already have, because an existing tree is already doing a lot more than a new tree that we just planted,” she says.

“The trees in our cities are working so hard for people—there’s something everyone can do to help create more sustainable environmental resilience for all.”

By Brooke Opel, Grant Manager, and Miranda Wojciechowski, Grant Writer, Development and Community Advisory & Tribal Services at Baker Tilly

Originally published by Industry Today

The historic $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) supports myriad funding opportunities for public and private sector organizations – everything from improving highways, bridges and transit systems, to building broadband networks, cleaning up drinking water, updating energy grids, implementing carbon capture technologies, and more.

However, two years into this five-year (2022–2026) legislative program, securing IIJA funding has proven to be slower and more complicated than originally thought.

Continue reading here

Learn more at Baker Tilly’s Inflation Reduction Act Resource Center.