This Earth Day, Inspire Brands is celebrating a positive agricultural impact that’s been a full year in the making. As a corporate campus partner of Bee Downtown, Inspire installed three bee hives at its Atlanta Global Support Center to help grow the local pollinator population. The result? Inspire’s healthy honeybees are enjoying a safe space of pollination in a three-mile radius around Inspire, producing a 19% higher yield of honey per hive than Georgia’s reported state average and creating 113 pounds of honey in 2023.
“As Visionaries and Good Citizens, Inspire takes an imaginative approach to elevating our local communities,” says Christopher Fuller, Chief Communications and Impact Officer for Inspire. “In partnership with Bee Downtown, we were able to reimagine the space at our Support Center to enhance Atlanta’s natural environment and educate our team members on the importance of protecting our pollinators.”
Honeybee populations in the U.S. have seen a steady decline since 1989, with the average bee loss rate between 2022 and 2023 at 48%. As the most widespread global pollinator that a third of the world’s food depends on, organizations like Bee Downtown are working with partners to actively arrange space for bees to thrive – and it’s working, with Bee Downtown tracking an average bee loss rate of just 14% from 2022 to 2023 versus the larger national average.
“Corporate partners like Inspire do so much more than offer a home for bees,” says Bee Downtown Founder and CEO Leigh-Kathryn Bonner. “They’re supporting urban agriculture with pollinators that enable the production of fruits, nuts, and seeds. They are also growing curiosity by offering year-round employee engagement opportunities to get involved.”
In 2023, hundreds of Inspire team members officially welcomed the honeybee hives with a Hive Homecoming event featuring take-home plant pots with native species, local honey samples, and a queen bee naming contest. Today, the Inspire hives are marked by these on-brand names: Bee-Dubs, Arbee’s, and Butter Bee-can.
For Inspire, providing opportunities for team members to get involved in community initiatives is a part of our commitment to being Good Citizens, one of the company’s Core Behaviors focused on elevating each other and the communities we serve. From educational events to Hive Tours with Bee Downtown’s beekeepers, Inspire team members have spent more than 300 collective hours learning about ways to support our honeybee population. Team members have also had the opportunity to purchase honey from our bees, raising funds for Inspire’s employee giving program, Champions of Hope.
Want to learn more about Inspire’s impact? Visit our Impact Site.
