Here’s how we got growing in 2021

Acquisition of lands in Denmark

Expanding our business with the acquisition of Danish lands near Kalundborg on Zealand and Thisted in Jutland marked a very exciting new chapter for us and our international expansion! It signified our first ownership of lands outside France, and we celebrated the achievement at the French Embassy in Copenhagen thanks to the generous hospitality from the Ambassador of France Caroline Ferrari and the entire team at the embassy. 

Our B Corp certification 

After 10 months of careful assessment, we were awarded our B Corp certification with a distinction as Best for the World in the Environment Category! We’re super proud of our BCorp label as it embodies all the aspects we believe in around using business as a force for good. Our B Corp status gets reviewed every three years and our next steps will be to 1) continue pushing our passion for forests by sharing our expertise on sustainable forestry and biodiversity management, 2) increasing our work on biodiversity projects by engaging businesses and individuals in the process of restoring and protecting rich environments, and 3) expanding our business model to other countries and help reforest Europe by planting new trees! 

We won the SDG Tech Award for the best Sustainability Leader in the SME Category

The SDG Tech Awards celebrates sustainable technologies from start-ups, SMEs and corporations to create a cross-sector collaborative community of impact makers. With over 600 nominees, it was truly an honour to have our co-founder and international CEO Thomas steal the show by winning the SDG Tech Award for the best Sustainability Leader in the SME Category among such great and inspiring climate-impact talents. 

Onboarding new talents

We also welcomed five new faces to the EcoTree international office during 2021. Cyril joined as our COO, Dan as our International Head of Comms and PR, Pablo as our Forestry and R&D Manager, Christian as our Business Analyst and Vladimir as our Front-End Developer. We’re now 14 dedicated employees in the international office, representing 7 different nationalities.  

We received the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label

We were also very proud to join the Solar Impulse Foundation, which recognises high standards in profitability and sustainability solutions. To receive the “Solar Impulse Efficient Solution” label, our EcoTree solution was thoroughly assessed by independent experts across five criteria covering the three main topics of Feasibility, Environmental and Profitability. All labelled solutions are part of the 1000 solutions portfolio, and the aim of this initiative is to encourage the adoption of more ambitious environmental targets and fast-track the implementation of these solutions on a large scale.

We launched our Carbon Manifesto 

Working with trees and carbon capture, it’s very important to be clear about our positions in this area, which is why we launched our very own Carbon Manifesto. So if you’re trying to wrap your head around carbon offsetting, here are our 10 key things you need to know on carbon sequestration. It will help you cut through the jargon and make sure that your money is being spent on real, measurable impact.

We joined the Restor platform

As part of our continuous drive to increase transparency around our sustainable forestry management practices, we joined Restor and added all our forest sites to the platform! It’s now possible for anyone to analyse the restoration potential of all our land, including data on local biodiversity, current and potential soil carbon, and other variables like land cover patterns, soil pH, and annual rainfall. 

Introducing AI and Forest View 

If you think of forestry as something old-school and conservative, then think again! We’re working on a wide range of innovative tech solutions, including satellite and drone data, IoT devices, time-lapses, and much more. 

For our followers on Instagram, we brought people closer to nature by using augmented reality with a new Instagram filter that enables people to plant their very own tree wherever they are! Our Sessile Oak filter is available through our EcoTree profile, so go check it out!  

We also launched another feature for our tree owners to bring them much closer to their trees. We called it “Forest View”, which is similar to Google Street View, and it introduces a new experience where tree owners and nature-lovers can visit our forests online! This means that we can now bring our tree owners into the forest without them having to leave their sofa.

Events and conferences

We participated at three mayor events throughout the year, starting out with Klimafolkemødet, a climate event in Denmark for politicians, experts, companies and citizens. Our International CEO Thomas shared his wisdom about all the great benefits of sustainable forestry in the context of nature-based solutions (NBS) and our Danish Country Manager Kristoffer explained how EcoTree can help Danish municipalities manage their groundwater strategies by planting trees around their water reservoirs. At Web Summit in Portugal, we joined the event as one of the 10 most anticipated start-ups at the event and our International CEO Thomas took the stage to speak about our mission to turn punitive ecology into positive ecology to engage everyone in acting more environmentally friendly. We rounded off the year at Slush in Finland, taking the chance to meet with existing and new clients, partners and collaborators.