How We Planted 10,000 Trees With Ecologi

Let’s talk about how we’re building an actual real life canopy with Ecologi.

We’re all about making it easier to buy better, by bringing together verified, sustainable products all in one place. Our goal is to shine a spotlight on the incredible businesses out there making innovative, low-impact and eco-friendly products.

But what about our business itself?

Building a better business

One of the core values we built into Canopey from the very beginning was to be a better business – particularly when it comes to the environment.

While we may be a digital platform without the big footprint that comes with processes like manufacturing and logistics, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t practise what we preach.

In other words: it’s no use ‘talking the talk’ if you don’t walk the walk!

So when we launched our crowdfund in September we decided that we wanted to use some of the money raised to make some good things happen.

We agreed we’d work with a climate project partner Ecologi to fund tree planting and climate initiatives.

We’ve followed through on our commitment, and we’re pleased to say we have planted more than 10,000 trees!

Welcome to the Canopey forest

Through Ecologi we’ve helped fund the planting of 10,375 trees in the Mau Region of southern Kenya. If you stacked the trees we’ve planted their branches would tower above you at seven times the height of Mount Everest!

Between 1990 and 2015, 311,000 hectares of forest were lost in Kenya. That’s an area twice the size of London! Thankfully in 2019 the government set a target of increasing tree cover by 10% by 2022.

Restoring forests will support local biodiversity – providing shelter, shade and food for many species. A wide variety of native species are being planted in this site, including trees that will provide new food sources for local people, including avocado, lemon and papaya trees.

Planting native trees allows areas to naturally regenerate, encouraging plants and animals to return to areas where they used to live.

This tree planting project is run with Eden Reforestation Projects, a non-profit whose mission is to provide fair-wage employment to impoverished villagers as agents of global forest restoration. The specific tree species is called Zanthoxylum usambarense.

You can read more about this particular project on the Ecologi website, or check out our digital forest (as well as see the other positive projects we support) on our personal Ecologi page.

The future of our forest

Ecologi provide some interesting reading on how they ensure the trees they plant have the best survival rate, going on to mature and sequester more carbon over time.

We’ll continue to dedicate a portion of our profits to tree planting and regeneration projects. We’ve also committed to planting per employee with Ecologi’s climate positive workforce programme.

But we can go further – and we plan to.

Stay tuned for our next update on tree planting where we'll be revealing our exciting pledge for further action.

Until then, thanks for reading.

Thomas Panton
Founder & CEO