Hello everyone!

I'm trying to develop my own social impact project based on one of my special interests, which is sustainability. I’ve been advised by the people from the Centre for Effective Altruism to share it here, as there should be people interested and able to help me with it.

The main idea behind it is to give individuals an opportunity to gradually build a tangible, positive environmental impact by joining ecosystem restoration at scale, and to make it as easy and convenient as possible.

Of course, it is not meant to be a replacement for so much needed decarbonization, lifestyle changes, and political pressure, but a complementary measure. If we can do more to accelerate green transition, then why not? 

Researching the topic of tree planting and carbon offsets, I’ve encountered various issues with many initiatives, such as:

• Not showing how many trees are needed to offset one’s carbon footprint, which could create a false sense of doing enough and discourage further action,
• Not including trees’ survivability rates and projecting sequestration values of adult trees to all seedlings, or even not reporting on individuals’ impact at all,
• Reforesting industrial plantations as part of their production cycle, which do not add additional forest cover or increase biodiversity.

That is why I develop my project to:

• Show how many trees are really needed to offset carbon footprint, currently presented as per capita values in each country,
• Include trees’ survivability rates, averaging sequestration values through the whole lifecycle, which prevents impact overestimation and allows to report progress in a real time manner,
• Aim to make a true land cover change and create new diverse forests and woodlands with mostly ecological functions, currently focusing on temperate broadleaf forests, as there is a quite high potential for biomess increase.

People can choose their planting plan, gradually planting a whole forest and building a tangible impact. We handle the rest with our local partners, including securing land, planting operations, and maintenance. 

I've managed to get a small grant to formally register a legal entity, and create a simple website and web application. I’ve also already got a few municipalities interested in partnering, pledging over 4 000 hectares of land for the project, with the potential for much more! Also have a few subscribers to planting plans across the EU and the US.

Now it is a matter of gaining enough momentum and support to jumpstart field operations, which is a major challenge for me. 

Maybe the EA community could help, either by joining by yourself, spreading the word, or advising on how I could get more people to contribute? I’m in a chicken-and-egg situation, where people expect me to show completed projects, while I need initial support to even start them.

Here you can check the project’s website: https://greenwedge.eco/

I would immensely appreciate your help and feedback, and as additional inspiration, here is a screenshot from the app’s dashboard:

I know that it is still a minimal version. It will be upgraded as the project develops and has more resources available.

Hope to see you on board!