Why not right?
I mean, how hard can it be? We've all got a spade somewhere in the back garden, buried under some leaves and old manky tarp, and the garden centre is still open despite Covid so you can get a tree delivered tomorrow, let's go! We always wanted an orchard full of fig trees.
The thing is it is actually a little harder then you might at first think.
Millions of $ or trees are being wasted and killed by individuals and companies just jumping in at the deep end and not doing their homework.
The hard part is not finding saplings to plant or the land to plant a tree, nor about finding the people to dig or where to dig. The hardest part is about making sure the trees get planted and actually live.
We know because we've all done it!
It's a sunny day, the apartment needs cheering up, we need cheering up. So we buy a beautiful orchid from the local supermarket or florist. The cashier tells us 'these are such easy plants to look after' you nod and listen, you even read the little plastic inlay card:
Spray with water
Keep out of direct sunlight
DO NOT OVER WATER
You do all of the above, yet it still dies in 4 weeks. How? Because you were more concerned with symmetry than location and put it next to the radiator, you twit!
Ok hilarious. So get to the point?!
Here it is.
WeTransfer is committing to planting nearly 170,000 trees this year. Not 100 million or even 1 million. Just a measly 167,000. Pppffffffftttttttt. (that's a tiny trumpet)
But the good news for both you and the trees is that we will not get anywhere near them.
Phhhurrrrppt! Phhhurrrrppt!
You know why? Cause we would mess it up. They'd be planted upside down, or we'd get distracted with what design we could create that could be visible from space and forget to water the darn things.
Now to make this happen, we need your help. (actually, we'll do it anyway but don't tell anyone)
As you may have seen on WeTransfer.com, we have some pretty amazing, award-winning, lip-smackingly gorgeous and sexy ads. Suppose you haven't seen these works of art its probably because you've got an adblocker running, understandable because most of the world's ads are awful. But ours aren't.
So if you disable your ad blocker and look at our ads, we'll reward you with eye candy and plant trees at the same time. The more people do this the more trees we’ll plant. Even if just one of you disables your ad blocker, we'll plant trees, 167,000 of them. It's just the start and it's our commitment.
Some specifics:
We are going to focus our efforts on marine coastal ecosystems, what some people call Blue Carbon. Why there? The ocean is the biggest carbon sink. We need to protect and restore Sea Kelp and mangrove forest, so the ocean can continue to do what it does best absorbing and storing absorbing and storing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Together with our partner SeaTrees, we will be planting 100,000 mangrove trees in Kenya and restoring 67,000 square feet of kelp in LA in the next three months.
Providing resources and education for local communities
Protecting local communities from storm surges and sea-level rise
Increasing Marine Productivity and creating critical nursery grounds for fish and shellfish
Creating meaningful jobs for 200 people who are supporting hundreds of families.
And it has the potential to sequester more than 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the ecosystems being planted and protected.
As a company with just over 200 employees, this is just a tiny start. But with your help, we can make this so much more impactful.
And no, this is not just a one time thing we are doing for the environment. We are actually doing many more things to make sure that we take responsibility for the tech that we bring into the world and set the bar high. Curious? We became a B Corp in June 2020, we just announced our Climate Neutral Certification and we are raising awareness about climate change through creativity while doubling down donations for many organizations like the Climate Emergency Fund.
You can find out more about the project with our partner SeaTrees here: https://sea-trees.org/
Come on. It’s a start.