Lawson Rose Estate Agents in Southsea promises to plant a tree for every home sold as it makes its office more sustainable

Lawson Rose Estate Agents, in Winter Road, Southsea, has pledged to swap the way that it operates in the office in a bid to play their part in helping the environment.

Staff have made it their mission to reduce the amount of paper that they are using and they have gone almost entirely paperless, which has not only reduced the cost of paper being spent, but also prevents waste.

The property has about 50 light bulbs throughout, and until recently, they were all switched on throughout the day and evening – but Chris Bull, the owner, has decided to put them on timers so that they are only on at interim periods of the evening.

Mr Bull said: ‘I think some of it started from my kids coming in and talking about it and it got me thinking about how much we use ie petrol and paper and since thinking about it we looked at it and there was quite a lot of stuff that we were wasting.

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‘We are pretty much paperless in the office – it was quite daunting going paperless but once we did it has actually made our lives easier.

One of their biggest initiative that has been introduced is that for every house sale made, they will plant a tree and the seller will receive a certificate confirming their role in saving the planet as well as the estate agents.

One Tree Planted is a not for profit organisation that plant trees across the world and they have planted more than 40 million trees across the world to try and restore the forest and help the environment.

The estate agents have been working closely with the organisation and they have had trees planted across Europe, Africa and America.

Chris added: ‘If all of the small businesses decided to do this it would make a huge difference. There are 50 estate agents in Portsmouth and if they all did this it would make a difference and put Portsmouth on the map.’

He said that they will continue to work towards making their office as sustainable as possible.