We’re saying goodbye to an amazing 2018
2018 was a wave of new ventures, internal company growth, countless innovative designs, and a new milestone of trees planted. Our tree-planting initiatives saw new planting sites and exciting partnerships to bring us ever closer to our goal to plant one billion trees by 2030.
With new teams bring new resources and ideas to push our existing bounds of sustainability and possibilities driven by ethical principles, allowing us to push for bigger and better standards. 2018 has set us up for a strong future, and we want to take a moment to take stock of our accomplishments and whet your appetite for 2019.
We added a lot of new designs
One of the great assets of tentree, and key to a successful organization is we’re spoilt with teams who are full of expertise and knowledge. Armed with a great team of designers and suppliers, they all put their heads together to pursue some provocative questions: how can we make our already sustainable products, more sustainable?
“We’ve spent a lot of time researching how our fibers and materials were compared to their conventional counterparts. We’ve dug into reports and data from industry organizations and data sources to collect and summarize data and facts that would help better tell our sustainability story.”
The amount of dedication and passion paid off. Our first Mobius backpack collection, new and improved Constellations collection, blankets, beach towels, seed paper greeting cards, Highballer collection, Plantana Collection, our first ever dog accessories and more are the direct result of exciting new avenues of sustainable materials. With new partnerships from Taiwan and China, as well as a new finishing manufacturer in Bangladesh, we’ll have even more possibilities to offer in the new year.
We expanded our family
2018 also saw the tentree family grow beyond borders through new digital campaigns.
The ambassador program:
The tentree family grew in exciting ways in 2018. Our Ambassador Program amassed over 2600 members on Facebook—opening tentree up to new corners of the world. tentree fans can now get together to create a supportive and fun environment with monthly missions, and even offer input on new tentree designs.
We did a lot of good
During the time of our Green Friday events, California was entrenched with tragedies of wildfires—by the time the fires were contained, 153,336 acres were burned, more than 13,000 homes destroyed, and 85 lives perished.
We partnered with the California Fire Foundation and their SAVE Program and donated 20% of our Giving Tuesday’s proceeds to provide immediate financial relief to the wildfire victims. Together, we raised more than $5000 for cash credit cards, allowing families to purchase food, clothing, medication in their time of need.
Collaborating with foundations like California Fire Foundation reminds us and our communities that all of our livelihoods depend on supporting one another, and ensuring we take care to minimise further damage.
We also contributed to numerous projects beyond tree planting:
- The well drilling system we bought in 2017 arrived in Madagascar and our team completed training as well as construction on several wells
- In Mahajanga, we built a classroom within our maternity centre — both of which are now complete and fully operational.
- Our B-Corp Impact score went UP. tentree now has a fantastic 124.6 rating, reflecting our commitment and investment in our environment and community.
And we always try to give back to our local communities in our headquarters of Vancouver, BC.
- Stanley Park Cleanup
- Surfrider Jericho Beach Cleanup
- Team Office Cleanups
- Community Street Cleanups
- Office Chilli Tuesdays raised over $250 CAD to the Local Food Banks, and $150 to local animal rescues
- Office World Cup Soccer Pool raised over $200 to our Vietnam and China factories
We launched our Kickstarter campaign
Our Accessories designers created an ambitious backpack designed almost completely with sustainable, recycled materials, and the world brought it to life with Kickstarter. We raised an incredible total of $270,240, and planted over 50,000 trees.
We have great plans for the Mobius, but we’re more excited to see the first wave of people to get their backpack, and put it to good use.
We traveled the world:
From icy landscapes of Banff, tropical treks through Hawaii to factory tours in Ho Chi Min, tentree expanded our horizons and saw numerous inspirations we will take into 2019.
Here are some of the places we visited:
- California (photoshoot)
- Banff (photoshoot)
- Oregon (new planting site)
- Washington (photoshoot)
- Hawaii (photoshoot)
- Shanghai (factory visit)
- Bangkok(factory visit)
- Dhaka (factory visit)
- New Delhi (factory visit)
- Ho Chi Min (factory visit)
- Seoul (factory visit)
- Guangdong (factory visit)
- Kolkata (factory visit)
- Indore (factory visit)
- Mumbai (factory visit)
We planted over 25 million trees
It took us 7 years to plant our first 25 million trees, we are going to plant our next 25 million in the next two years—at this pace we are on track to plant 25 million a year, and to our ultimate goal of 1 billion trees.
In 2017 we planted roughly 7.2 million trees. In 2018, we planted over 9 million trees. Here’s a quick and rough breakdown of your impact:
- 5.2 million Madagascar
- 500,000 Nepal
- 1.3million Indonesia
- 1.2 million Senegal
- 500,000 Haiti
- 300,000 Canada & USA
We have great goals for 2019:
Sustainable design has reached new and exciting heights. The world is finally opening up to environmentally conscious solutions. And for 2019, we have exciting plans to inspire the world even more, including:
- Development of a tentree footprint calculator
- Launching a full C2C (Cradle-to-Cradle) program
- Introduction of waterless polyester dyeing process
- Move to Fair Trade organic cotton certification
- Launching a full traceable map of our supply chain
- Enhancing the Tree Registry Program to focus more on transparency
- Tree token will move from metal material to more sustainable corozo
- Rolling out “roll-pack” packaging program, effectively eliminating our use of single-use polybags (those clear plastic bags that each product is wrapped in) on more than 60% of our products.
Thank you, 2018! Hello, 2019!
2018 marked a lot of success, and goals achieved. We saw our team almost double in size and have some pretty awesome things planned ahead. The year may be ending, but we aren’t winding down, we’re constantly working to make tentree even better and to plant even more trees.
Every challenge we tackle, and every goal achieved is woven with the purpose to help you protect the world we play in. Thank you for supporting us on this exciting journey, and we’ll see you in 2019!
