(photo credit: EdenProjects.org)
So you’ve bought your Tentsile Tree Tent. It’s been packed up and whizzed to your door. You eagerly open it up, and read: ‘Tentsile: we plant 18 trees for every tent sold.’ Perhaps you’re familiar with our environmental aims. Or perhaps, unknowingly, unintentionally, you’ve become part of a movement to reverse worldwide deforestation!
But how, you ask? For this week’s blog, we want to take you behind-the-scenes of Tentsile’s tree planting pledge…
As you all know, Tentsile loves trees! Everything we do is about saving trees and inspiring others to love trees too. We even started the #BecomeOneOfTheMillion campaign to get one million people up in the trees over 5 years - “After all, if we’re hanging out in trees, they can’t be chopped down!” in the simple words of Tentsile’s founder, Alex. An impossible feat to achieve alone, Alex and the Tentsile Team turned to official tree planting organisations to help our mission.
In so many countries and so many companies, there are people - just like us at Tentsile – who are mad about trees! Unfortunately, we couldn’t possibly work with everyone. Tentsile had to decide a few important criteria to find in our partners: Working with local communities, training residents, and creating jobs? Definitely. Planting native species and protecting samplings to maturity? Absolutely. We know restoring forests can’t happen overnight. We also know there are complex challenges when planting trees worldwide. While we may not personally be experts on Mangroves in Madagascar or soil types in Zambia, we are proud to have partners that know their stuff...
Since 2013 Tentsile has supported WeForest in the planting of over 50,000 trees. WeForest is a growing organisation (get it?) devoted to engaging local communities in managing forest landscapes. Then in 2015 we also joined up with Eden Reforestation Projects. To see for yourself how EdenProjects non-profit works, they’ve put together this helpful video. Our latest partnership is with the Arbor Day Foundation who are hard at work planting trees, supported by sales from our new store in Bend, Oregon USA.
(video credit: EdenProjects.org)
So how do we calculate sales into seedlings? Every month, when each of you purchases a Tentsile Tree Tent or gives a generous donation, the total orders are all added up. Then, though we’d love to say we have a team of secret geniuses crunching numbers at Tentsile HQ, in the 21st century we just have Excel. Spreadsheets on spreadsheets calculate the cost of planting 3 trees per sale and these figures are then donated to our hardworking partners.
Regular updates mean we can keep an eye on progress, and how this money is being spent. As much as possible we also love sharing these success stories with you. For example, did you know that Arbor Day Foundation promotes urban tree canopies by engaging thousands of communities as Tree Cities throughout America? Did you know that WeForest’s fruit tree nursery scheme in Zambia trains local women to become entrepreneurs and create their own income? Or that EdenProjects has helped a village in Madagascar plant 80 million trees? Amazing work! You might also have read that James Borrell, our conservation explorer, even made his own visit to the WeForest office in Zambia. He was able to see the project first-hand and report back the wonderful successes of the organisation and work that still needs to be done.
That’s right, there’s still a massive amount to improve. Slowly but surely, with your help, Tentsile, WeForest, EdenProjects and Arbor Day Foundation are restoring forests worldwide. At the time of this blog, we estimate 135,471 trees have been planted through Tentsile sales! That’s through every one of you joining us in the trees, and joining the reforestation movement. Thank you to our partners, thank you to our followers, and thank you to all who have #BecomeOneOfTheMillion. Let’s change the world together.
*Author's Note:
As of November 2017 part of our Green Friday announcement, Tentsile increased 3 trees for every Tree Tent sold up to 18 trees. Planting 6x MORE TREES for every tent sold means we can make the world a little greener together.
