Back in 2019 I had an idea. Reading the publication “The Global Tree restoration potential” I thought of creating an app that will encourage people to replant trees, pledging to a global 1Trillion Trees reforestation challenge. Here’s a video pitch for the MVP of the app as created by Social Mind, a digital agency I co-founded and was running as a VP at the time.
This app aimed to target:
- The environmentally savvy people that want to do something about global warming and climate change, offering them an easy way to get a plantation kit by their local nursery garden and plant it in a suitable space, near their residence.
- People that are not educated around replanting but eager to learn. The app offers them the right tools and instructions to easily start replanting. They could, for example, organize a replanting family activity in a nearby forest.
The gamification aspects of the app would allow individuals, companies and organizations to keep track on the trees they replant, personalize the experience and phygitaly “pass” their trees coordinates, to the next generation.
In order to fund the idea we decided to participate to PARSEC:
a business accelerator supporting the creation of new Earth Observation (EO) based products and services. The accelerator targets SMEs, start-ups, entrepreneurs and researchers who want to have an impact on the emerging Food, Energy and Environment sectors. With the support of PARSEC, their ideas will be developed into solutions fuelled by the benefits of EO.
PARSEC Accelerator official website
We didn’t get the funding 🎉
The 3 Billion Trees Pledge
Fast forward in December 2021, two years after our proposal this happened…
Under the European Green Deal, the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 commits to planting at least 3 billion additional trees in the EU by 2030 in full respect of ecological principles.
3 billion trees by the European Commission
Although less ambitious than my original 1 Trillion Trees pledge, I am really happy that EU is utilizing reforestation research to fight global warming. I am also happy to see that they use digital mediums to raise awareness to the European citizens about the importance of reforestation. I still have a strong opinion that a gamified mobile app can be a change maker for the participation of citizens to the pledge, but I remain optimistic that we will eventually get there.
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(photo credit: Maximilian Jaenicke by Unsplash)
