How GROW MY TREE will plant 10,000 trees for CargoX in Africa and why this matters

At CargoX we have built an electronic platform to send documents of title (bills of lading) and other electronic trade documents (letters of credit, ACI filings, etc) so that companies can stop sending paper documents with couriers around the world. To upgrade that activity, we have recently partnered with GROW MY TREE by Impact HERO, to grow 10,000 trees - and altogether they have already planted more than 1,8 million. 

The partnership supports global reforestation with regional efforts in the Southern Hemisphere of Planet Earth and promote the rapid adoption of electronic trade documents that CargoX has been pioneering. 

The importance and logic of this collaboration on reforestation

The two companies, both committed to a cleaner, paperless and more sustainable world, have reached an agreement that the GROW MY TREE by Impact Hero campaign will plant 10,000 trees in Tanzania, Africa, on behalf of CargoX within the next 2 months and nurture this forest for them. This is still just a drop in the ocean – and everyone can and should contribute to doing more.  

10,000 trees is a lot, but much more is needed

10,000 trees seems like a big forest, and it's about 10 acres / 4 hectares. Grow My Tree has already planted more than 1.8 million trees in different countries around the world to date. CargoX has calculated, based on existing estimates, that 10,000 trees can be equivalent to about 83 million sheets of paper* – and that is still only a fraction of the paper used in global trade today.

There is still much to be done to digitalise global trade. A single international trade transaction can require up to 20 or more documents, with each document comprising several pages – and global container shipping alone generates about 28.5 billion paper documents each year.* About 75% of current trade documents are paper-intensive and consume a lot of resources, according to research from McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.

To achieve trade digitalisation and help save the forests and costs (an estimated $6.5 billion in direct costs!) CargoX is pursuing a two-pronged strategy: the conversion of the supply chain industry from paper-based to electronic trade documents, and assisting the active recovery of severely damaged biomes.

How companies grow trees

GROW MY TREE by Impact Hero is a global reforestation initiative with more than 400 corporate partnerships (Allianz Direct, Boston Consulting Group, Alcatel-Lucent, Design Bestseller, Schlaraffia, R+V, ...) and more than 53,000 individuals who have already planted trees with an annual CO2 offset potential of 39.6 thousand tonnes.

Impact HERO is dedicated to making the world a greener and more social place. It uses the power of business to act as a multiplier for positive change. Their products range from planting trees with their GROW MY TREE sub-brand, to collecting plastic from rivers and oceans, to supporting education for young people in the global south and restoring coral reefs.

“This all fits perfectly into CargoX’s strategy that strives to achieve a paperless global trade environment, as well as rejuvenate the planet’s forests and global water bodies. For us, clean habitat preservation and impactful restoration is a core value,” said Stefan Kukman, CargoX founder and CEO. 

“Through employees and customers, companies reach many people at once - so they can create greater social awareness as multipliers. Whether digitalising processes, as CargoX powerfully does, or invoicing, signing a contract, greeting a new employee, as a gift for subscribing to a newsletter, or buying a Christmas present - there are enough campaigns that companies can engage, and that can be combined with planting a tree, collecting plastic, protecting the biodiversity or any other good deed,” – said Dijana Galijasevic, founder & co-CEO of Impact HERO.

How do they do it?

Impact HERO makes it simple. They offer sponsorship to companies and individuals and in return work with local organisations and individuals in selected countries to plant trees on a large scale, at a reasonable cost and with a highly ethical approach.

The Grow My Tree certificate

The Grow My Tree team provides a tree-certificate every single tree that they plant. The transparency is provided in the steps of raising the seedling with the support of local smallholders and villagers, from planting the seedlings, to long-term care and monitoring the growing trees, to support of holistic projects “beyond the tree” that provide a social impact. They cover their methodology extensively on their website. 

Fair approach

The Grow My Tree team puts emphasis on the content of the projects and the local social conditions. They help reduce extreme poverty and restore healthy ecosystems by planting trees in cooperation with their partners. They promote the help to self-help approach to achieve positive multiplication effects through long-term training and employment opportunities, ownership by giving the trees to the farmers, cultural awareness by strictly adhering to cultural traditions and needs of the local communities, and a biodiversity fit by only planting native tree species to protect the local flora and fauna and guarantee the long-term survival of the trees. 

How many trees are needed, exactly?

Trees are a natural wonder because they absorb CO2 from the air and use it as an energy source for wood, roots, leaves or needles. Furthermore, a tree can through photosynthesis absorb approximately 22 kg of CO2* per year and convert it to oxygen.

In Germany (where Grow My Tree Impact HERO has headquarters) the consumption, nutrition, travel and energy use of people results in approximately 9,600 kg CO2 per year*. Each individual contributes to CO2 emissions in Germany and around the world and can also reduce annual per capita emissions at the same time. We cannot completely reduce our CO2 consumption, and must, therefore, make sure to scrub our CO2 from the air.

Sustainable networks & partnerships

GROW MY TREE by Impact Hero is:

• Committed to the UN Global Compact, an initiative for corporate responsibility and its principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Find the August 2022 Communication on Progress here.

• A member of B.A.U.M. e.V. whose mission is to sensitise companies, municipalities and organisations to the concerns of preventive environmental protection and the vision of sustainable management, as well as providing them with support in the ecologically effective, economically sensible and socially just implementation.

• A member of the Greentech Alliance.

• Collaborating with CarbonSpace, one of the most prominent players in the field of CO2 visualisation of ecosystems, to constantly evaluate the CO2 values of reforestation projects and feed the values back to universities.

Grow your trees

You can plant or gift a tree with a few clicks. Visit the GROW MY TREE by Impact Hero webpage to select your tree bundle, and that’s it! To put it into perspective – around 440 trees (an average estimate) are needed to neutralise 100% of an individual’s CO2 emissions of 9680 kg CO2 per year (calculation is made for Germany, so the number can differ according to the region of residence). You can also gift trees for holidays or special occasions.

Diverse ways of impacting the environment for companies

There are different types of impact available, and it is best to see them through real cases of deployment. 

• Allianz Direct insurance provider plants one tree for every car insurance policy sold. 

• Alcatel-Lucent telecommunications equipment maker plants one tree a month for every employee and encourages them to plant at least one more to match.

• MP real-estate company plants one tree for every square metre of living property sold. 

Let’s do it!

At the current rate of deforestation, scientists estimate that there will be no rainforests left in 100 years. “CargoX wants to actively contribute to the opposite being the case, so that in 100 years we would have more forests with more diverse ecosystems than we do today, and Grow My Tree is the right partner for us”, says Kukman.

“So far we have planted over 1,800,000 million trees. We were able to provide work for local people and reforest land. But it must go on. We want to raise awareness of the global challenge we are all facing. It takes a lot of work to save our planet - and we all have to pitch in," says Dijana Galijasevic.

Visit https://business.growmytree.com/ to impact the environment in the best way possible.

About CargoX

The CargoX Platform for Digital Trade Document Transfer helps governmental entities and economic operators worldwide exchange electronic trade documents instantly and cost-efficiently in the supply chain, finance, manufacturing, trading, energy, and services industries. More than 104,000 companies trust the CargoX Platform with their trade documents. CargoX is authorised as the blockchain document transfer gateway service provider to the Government of Egypt. The platform is approved by the IGP&I clubs.

About GROW MY TREE by Impact HERO

GROW MY TREE by Impact Hero is a project of the Berlin-based “impact-tech for good” company Impact Hero that makes tree planting & other impact products such as plastic collection or reef regeneration accessible and affordable for B2C and B2B customers. Impact Hero represents a vision for addressing global challenges by harnessing the power of businesses as a force for positive impact on the planet. Grow My Tree has planted over 1.800.000 trees, which translates roughly into 39.600.000 kg of CO2 sequestration potential, more than 14.500 days of work provided and 7 million m2 of land restored.

Follow the progress of GROW MY TREE by Impact HERO

https://growmytree.com/en/

https://growmytree.com/en/pages/transparenz

CargoX Media Contact

Charlie Pesti
[email protected]
+1-267-514-5497

 

(*) The estimate of an average number of sheets of paper produced from an average tree is an estimate that can be imprecise. (Source: Cushman-Roisin & Tanaka Cremonini, Useful Numbers, Elsevier 2021)

The three photos published (C) 2023 by Impact HERO.