Freshworks plants trees for a greener tomorrow
Led by the Freshworks CSR team, 380 volunteers in Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad spent over 1,200 hours planting one tree for every member of Team Freshworks
Earlier this summer, over 380 employees from Freshworks’ Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad offices volunteered as part of Project 5,000—aiming to plant one tree for each member of the Freshworks kudumba.
"It's not your typical hackathon, but for first-time volunteers like me, it felt like the ultimate green sprint," said Abhishek Munnolimath, senior engineering manager at Freshworks.
A week before the groundbreaking, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team organized a crash course in tree planting in Chennai. They brought in environmental experts, including Yuvan Aves from Palluyir Trust for Nature Education and Research and Dinesh Kshatriyan from Seerakku, to discuss why urban forests and agroforestry are crucial for combating climate change.
Freshworks CEO and President Dennis Woodside said the project was just one example of the company's greater sustainability goals: "The primary purpose of the initiative is to contribute to a greener environment and focus more on Freshworks' sustainability policy."
Volunteers pose with CEO and President Dennis Woodside while planting saplings in Chennai
June 21, Chennai
Woodside and Chief People Officer Johanna Jackman joined 270 volunteers planting trees at Chennai's Perungudi Government Higher Secondary School. By the end of the day, they had planted 5,000 saplings.
Prasanna Yamijala, a lead solution engineer, quipped: “It's like fixing bugs, but for the planet. But honestly, it was the most satisfying bug fix I have ever done."
A volunteer's smile brightens Freshworks tree-planting activity in Chennai
As the day wound down in Chennai, the mood was jubilant. Volunteers shared stories, compared dirt-stained hands, and made plans for future "tree dates" to check in on the progress of their growing saplings.
June 27, Bengaluru
A diverse group of volunteers plant trees together in a lush schoolyard in Bengaluru.
Less than a week later, 45 volunteers from the Bengaluru office, in collaboration with the NGO Bhumi, set out to transform a bare patch of ground at the Tamil Government Primary School in Shivaji Nagar. They dug into the red Karnataka soil to plant 200 saplings.
Rohit Sandal, who led the event and is a vice president of HR, said: "In our tech world, we are always talking about scaling up. Well, what's more scalable than a tree? It's nature's original cloud storage!"
July 6, Hyderabad
A group of volunteers plant trees in Hyderabad
In Hyderabad, 64 Freshworks employees volunteered to plant 200 saplings at the Government Upper Primary School in Shivarampalli.
Engineering VP Sreedhar Gade said: “It was an amazing experience, getting back in touch with nature, the innocence of children, and selfless acts of giving, serving the community and the environment. We are just beginning our green revolution, and more such events will come!”
Nishant Singh, who as a customer support manager usually spends his days helping customers, was already thinking ahead: "I can't wait to bring my kids here in a few years and show them how big these trees have grown!"
Shyam Anandaraman, senior director of CSR at Freshworks, summed up the green initiative: “Today, we’re more than a software company—we are a forest in the making. We're creating nature learning centers for kids, hoping to inspire the next generation of eco-conscious thinkers. Our first center is up and running, with plans for more each year."
