Introduction
This section is an overview of Greenstand and our programs.
Statement of Purpose
Around the world, millions of humans live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than US $2 per day. Their communities are disproportionately vulnerable to the harmful impacts of climate change, including drought, famine, and increasingly volatile weather patterns. The economic opportunities available in such communities are extremely limited; it is typical for landowners to sell or degrade their natural lands in order to make a living.
Meanwhile, the reforestation industry is growing exponentially. It has become increasingly common for companies to claim that purchasing their products leads to a tree being planted. However, there is no industry standard in place to verify whether or not a tree is actually planted. The consumer making the purchase, and therefore sponsoring the tree, has no way of knowing where the tree was planted or if it received adequate care to survive to adulthood.
Enter Greenstand, a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization developing open-source technology to address climate change and alleviate poverty. With our Treetracker app, tree growers can track the trees they plant and care for in exchange for fair monetary compensation, eliminating the need to degrade natural resources to put food on the table. Furthermore, Greenstand brings transparency to tree-planting initiatives by digitally valuing the environmental services that each tree provides on our verification platform. Planting organizations and donors can locate individual trees and track their ecological impact on our Web Map, allowing for a direct link between donors and individual tree growers. Greenstand seeks to become the standard for accountable, equitable afforestation.
Mission Statement
Greenstand’s mission is to create a global, open-source marketplace to digitally track and compensate farmers for growing individually managed trees to support reforestation and alleviate poverty. Our goal is to create a self-sustaining restoration platform that connects local communities in developing countries with socially- and environmentally-concerned global citizens. Restoration efforts are informed, and adjusted, based on the results of basic ecological research. We aim to enable communities to become stewards of their land while providing opportunities for gainful employment.
Tagline
Addressing poverty and climate change through technology
Technology that enables a greener, richer world
Technology for sustainable reforestation and poverty alleviation
Nurturing nature and social welfare, from the roots up
Alleviate extreme poverty. Cool our planet. Rebuild depleted lands.
Enabling people to create a greener, richer world
A new cash crop from tree growth
Vision Statement
To create a replicable and distributed platform to:
Enable once-disenfranchised people to participate in the global environmental credit market.
Shift the global paradigm from tree “planting” to “growing” diverse and valuable forests.
Allow all individuals, organizations, and donors growing trees to track and trade their impact.
Set an ISO standard for tree planting, growing, and reforestation value.
Verify and watch trillions of trees grow.
Goal
Our goal is to create a self-sustaining restoration platform that connects local communities in developing countries with socially- and environmentally-concerned global citizens. Restoration efforts are informed, and adjusted, based on the results of basic ecological research. We aim to enable communities to become stewards of their land while providing opportunities for gainful employment.
Organization History
Founder and Executive Director: David Ezra Jay
Founding: 2015
Major accomplishments:
Over 1 million unique tree capture verified in unique locations around the world by more than 2,200 individual growers
Nearing 5,000 global users of the Treetracker app across 6 continents
Partnerships with communities and planting organizations across 8 African countries, as well as initiatives in the Amazon, India, Thailand, Haiti, Philippines & Borneo
More than 250,000 Impact Tokens minted with potential to sell on a global marketplace
Direct payments to over 600 smallholder farmers & growers
4 unique custom integrations utilized by 3 companies
Milestones:
Early pilot stage showed interest and/or adoption by more than 200 grassroots organizations around the world
Treetracker app: a tree-tracking platform that verifies, maps and tracks individual trees; verification & mapping of over 1 million tree captures to date
Impact Wallet & Impact Token system: a digital tree wallet where each tree’s impact is assigned ownership and managed; allows for selling of impacts
#FreetownTheTreeTown: the Treetracker’s first urban use case. The World Bank and City Council of Freetown, Sierra Leone created a planting initiative across the city to plant 1 million trees over 2 years.
Finalist in the World Economic Forum’s Trillion Trees UpLink Challenge
Forthcoming Tree Value Matrix v1 - conceptual designed and in technical build, these criteria were designed to assign unique values to each tree capture based on ecological and social impact
Last updated