In 2018, the fashion industry accounted for 4% of global total greenhouse-gas emissions. Growth calculations, adjusted to consider the likely impact of COVID-19, show that the fashion industry will overshoot the target of reducing the GHG emissions to 1.1 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030 by almost twofold. Tree-Nation, the largest reforestation platform, makes offsetting carbon-imprints easy and accessible for companies and retailers by offering solutions that require only one click.
The Largest Reforestation Platform
Maxime Renaudin founded Tree-Nation in 2006 as a platform to connect concerned environmentalists with reforestation projects around the world. Inspired by all the beautiful places he visited during his “world tour,” Renaudin felt the need to take action in the protection of Nature.
“Back then I remember I had to explain ‘why?’ I was planting trees every single time I was talking about Tree-Nation,” Renaudin said. “Now nobody asks “why,” as it seems obvious. It’s a testimony that the public’s general knowledge and education on climate change has increased drastically in the recent years.”
Through Tree-Nation, anyone and everyone can plan trees without leaving their seats at home. With a click of a button, citizens can offset their everyday carbon emissions, and companies can compensate for the carbon emissions they produce. Home to 266 planting projects in 33 different countries, Tree-Nation has worked with 100 projects in 2020 alone.
Greener Corporate World
With its philosophy, “anyone can plant” Tree-Nation offers the corporate world an accessible way to fight climate change. Just like Google, Unilever, Garnier, P&G, any company of any size can start their Company Forests only in two minutes. After a quick registration process, companies can choose from more than 300 different species ranging from cacao trees to rare ones like pachira quinata. A specific list of species planted is displayed inside their Company Forests with information on their social, environmental, and economic benefits. Additionally, companies also keep track of their carbon compensation through the meticulous tracking system offered by Tree-Nation, also tailored down to each individual tree.
“We are not judging companies on their past, we are here to accompany them in their sustainable transition,” Renaudin said.”
As the trees reach the skies in numerous locations worldwide, companies can also follow the journey through the virtual trees that grow day by day.
1 Product 1 Tree by Tree-Nation: Sell Products to Grow a Forest
Creating a climate-positive brand is just a click away with Tree-Nation’s Shopify plug-in. By linking products to trees planted, Tree-Nation’s plug-in 1 Product 1 Tree automatically plants a tree in the name of the customer in the brand’s forest for every product sold in the Shopify store. Thus, user brands can offset their carbon emissions and fight climate change while doing business.
Tree-Nation’s plug-in offers features to ensure accurate statistical information on the number of trees and their species, punctilious recording of CO2 offset impact, immediate updates from the tree planters at the projects, and seamless customer interaction. With these features, brands sustain their environmental commitments.
In addition to the positive social, environmental, and economic impact, the plug-in also cultivates brand loyalty with its automatic “tree-gift” e-mail feature sent to each customer purchasing their products.
“This is a simple system that allows retailers to transform customers’ purchase experience by adding a positive impact for the planet with every purchase,” Renaudin said. “For each tree planted, customers will be able to view and collect their tree on the Tree-Nation platform.”
Customers can then collect their tree and also leave a testimonial. The retailers can read these testimonials on their brand forest.
Offset Products by Tree-Nation: From Offsetting Carbon Emissions to Reducing
The Shopify plug in, part of Tree-Nation’s Offset Products service allows a retailer to gift a tree to its customers for each product purchased. This gift system generates customer loyalty, and offsets a certain amount of CO2 for each product sold.
Offset Products is a service that acknowledges the urgency of climate change. Tree-Nation’s policy is to first offset all the company’s emissions by clearing the entire footprint with trees and then helping reduce a company’s emissions by allowing the company time to optimize operations in the long-term and reduce environmental tax.
“Companies are specialists at improving sales and reducing costs, they are not specialists at optimizing the supply chain for carbon neutrality,” Renaudin said. “Therefore, with this system, we position our partners in the best way possible to allow for them to reduce their carbon footprint, as they will have a financial incentive to reduce their emissions in order to reduce their carbon offset budget.”
Tree-Nation Project Sites: Sustainability at the Local Level
Before initiating each project, Tree-Nation puts the projects through a verification process that will ensure that the global incentives of fighting climate change will align with the local incentives of improving livelihood. The projects are designed so that the local community will have sufficient tangible benefits, including food security, desertification prevention, and agroforestry. The on-site species selected from a pool of 300+ provide benefits ranging from restoring soil-fertility with fast-growing species to increasing food security and providing health aid with fruit and medicinal trees.
“This is our strategy for ensuring long-term sustainability of the project and maximising the benefits that the trees we plant provide,” Renaudin said.
Conserve Natural Forests Project, Thailand
Usambara, Tanzania
Sacred Seeds, Colombia
Limay, Nicaragua
Education is Key: A Blog to Follow
In order to motivate people to take action against climate change, Tree-Nation produces two blog series accessible to anyone in the community. Carbon Catchers focuses on carbon emissions contributors from day-to-day activities to national economies. Climate Dictionary is a series that breaks down scientific buzzwords to make them digestible by anyone regardless of their scientific background.
“At Tree-Nation, we believe that the lack of climate education is one of the main problems preventing us as a species from solving the problem of climate change, ” Renaudin said.
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By Elif Kesikbas
