Reforestation Corporate Volunteer Events

How WeHero is enabling companies to plant tens of thousands of trees through corporate volunteering.

While there are a lot of causes worth tackling with a volunteer event, one of the causes that is front and center as a popular theme for employees is sustainability and reforestation. As companies continue to look internally at how their operations can be more sustainable and externally for ways to create offsets, reforestation becomes one of the primary solutions to achieve many companies' sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals. As this trend continues to grow, it creates increased opportunities to enable thousands of employees to plant trees through corporate volunteerism. This led WeHero to build a corporate volunteer event focused on reforestation with our partner, One Tree Planted. The best part, employees can physically participate in a reforestation corporate volunteer event from the comfort of their home!

Deforestation and climate change are two of the greatest challenges we all face globally. To put into perspective how significant the challenge is:

• We lose 15 billion trees per year due to deforestation. That’s 36 football fields of trees cut down per minute.
• Deforestation is driving climate change accounting for 13% of global emissions.
• 85% of deforested land is used for three primary agriculture products:
• Cattle
• Soybeans
• Palm oil

• Not only do we need trees to remove our carbon, but when they are removed, much of the carbon they have captured is released.

While harvesting timber is necessary for our economy, unrestrained deforestation can lead to the destruction and collapse of entire ecosystems. We know this can be alarming, but we’re not a bad news company. So here’s the good news and the solution we can all be a part of. A single tree can absorb 48 lbs of CO2 per year, making them the most effective carbon scrubbing machine in the world. Research has shown the economic growth can be decoupled from deforestation. Our personal favorite: Reforestation efforts are growing worldwide with some regions of the world seeing an increase in the size of their tree canopy. WeHero’s goal is to enable and activate employees through corporate volunteerism to plant 100,000 trees in 2020.

So how can corporate volunteering play a role and how can employees participate while working remotely?

Working with One Tree Planted, WeHero has created corporate volunteer events that can be shipped to employee homes, with each employee planting ten trees (three trees physically, and seven trees through One Tree Planted’s reforestation partners).

The experience arrives in a box with all the materials needed to plant and care for the trees including:

• Three 6 - 8 inch baby trees
• Soil
• Canvas grow bags
• Wipes for cleanup
• Tree care cards
• Instructions

With the materials arriving at home, WeHero also hosts a live digital event including an educational keynote around the importance of trees and reforestation efforts, a tree planting demonstration, and a tutorial of the Global Forest Watch (a tool for viewing historical tree population growth or decline in your local community). The live events also serve as a wonderful way for employees to connect and work together while all being remote.

KPMG had 330 employees participate in the experience and stated “It was such a great event and we have only heard good feedback. We're excited about the impact we have made!”

A fun fact about the packing and shipping for this event is that all the packaging materials are made of recycled materials and the shipping is offset to be carbon neutral!

Onsite corporate volunteer events focused on reforestation

As companies start coming back to work, WeHero will also begin hosting off site or in-office corporate volunteer events to increase the number of trees that can be planted in a single experience.