Trees are possibly the most effective solution for removing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. Tree-Nation is a digital platform that connects people with tree-planting projects all around the world, making it accessible for companies and private individuals to plant trees and fight against climate change. More than 15,000 companies and over 590,000 private individuals have already taken advantage of this offer and together they have planted more than 30 million trees on six continents. With Spreadshop, the Barcelona-based company has now created a new offer: For every merch product purchased from its shop, it plants ten trees. We spoke to Nina Paiano from Tree-Nation about the Spreadshop partner’s mission.
Spread Group: What is the idea behind “Tree-Nation”?
Nina Paiano: Founded in 2006 by Maxime Renaudin, to help tackle deforestation and all the issues connected to it, such as pollution, species extinction, climate change, floods, poverty, and malnutrition. It started with one project in the driest and poorest country on earth, Niger, and quickly evolved to help local teams of planters worldwide.
To solve the funding problem, Tree-Nation invented the virtual tree, the online forest, and many other software tools to provide a unique technological solution to break the distance between remote projects and their sponsors in developed countries. Each tree planted has a virtual counterpart with important information about the real tree, including its species, location, and project background. The Virtual Tree is assigned a unique URL, meaning it can be gifted and tracked as it grows. We use Internet Of Trees to refer to our service of integrating customer promotions around tree gifts into our API, allowing us to offer custom planting promotions as well.
Spread Group: What other goals have you set for yourselves?
Nina Paiano: We want to plant 1 trillion trees by 2050. Our commitment should not only benefit climate protection, but also help to restore and preserve biodiversity. 85 percent of all species living on land are native to tropical forests. Their existence is inextricably linked to forests.
We also want to continue improving the user experience of our platform. Recently, we made changes to it so that both the URL and certificate of every tree planted can be tracked and accessed in seconds.
Spread Group: Why did you choose Spreadshop as your partner?
Nina Paiano: Through the Spreadshop shop, we can expand the circle of our supporters and strengthen our brand. Currently, we offer our products mainly to key customers and do not yet actively promote the shop.
Spread Group: How do you measure the positive effect of your projects?
Nina Paiano: This is relatively simple for reforestation projects. We know the number of trees planted as our most important metric, which allows us to calculate the amount of CO₂ neutralized. For the calculation, we use average values based on the GHG Protocol. (GHG it’s the abbreviation of Greenhouse Gas. The GHG Protocol is the most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standard. Usually all the calculations use the GHG protocol or ISO 14064.)
Spread Group: What is the best way for interested parties to support you?
Nina Paiano: Plant trees with us by using our platform and buying in our shop.
Spread Group: Thank you for the interview, Nina.
Further information
- Tree-Nation Spreadshop: https://tree-nation.myspreadshop.net/
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/treenation
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/treenation
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/tree-nation
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/treenation
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