Ecologi

Why is it better than a charity which does the same thing?

I completely get your reservations and respect your opinion. The key for me here is that operating as a company allows them be more nimble, but they very much behave like a charity, and the level of transparency goes a long way towards convincing me to trust them to do some good with my money.

The benefit to a platform like this in my view comes down to two things. Consolidation and convenience. I’m trusting them to do the hard work of researching the projects for me. This is extremely convenient, and will save a ton of time vs finding, researching, and donating to similar projects myself. My subscription from what I gather will be split between a multitude of different projects that I would never be able to seek out and research by myself. I don’t particularly care about the superfluous pat on the back stuff, but I can understand why other people might. It can be unsatisfying donating to charities and then never knowing how your donation was used or who it helped. I personally like to know that stuff, but I also prefer to donate to charities anonymously via third party platforms, so it’s not information I’m usually exposed to.

I get where you’re coming from with for profit companies too, and it’s probably something I need to dig into a little deeper myself, but it’s entirely possible for profit generating companies to be doing just as much good as charities. From what I understand though, they’re using the money to fund projects that are run by those for profit companies, so not actually investing it in the company itself.

As I said, this isn’t to replace any donations I make to charities I believe in, or to replace efforts to keep my carbon footprint as close to neutral as possible, nor is it for a pat on the back, but it’s to add on to those other life style choices make. Frankly it’s a shame offsetting platforms need to even exist. There shouldn’t be a need for them at all, and that’s the root problem we need to eradicate, but until we get to that point, it’s a program I’ll support. I care about our planet, not for us, but for the other species with whom we cohabit. We are destroying their home, and it’s not right. So I will make sure my contribution to that is as little or non-existent as I possibly can.

As for planting trees yourself @lpoolrob, I’ve used The Present Tree many times. They’re more oriented towards gift giving, I especially like them for wedding gifts, or as a memorial, so I’m sure you can get trees for cheaper elsewhere; but I’ve also treated myself to a few of them for my own garden as well. The only downside are the spiders that like to make their home in my trees. I’m terrified of them.

A quick edit of something similar I’d like to see more of:
I use a platform called good on you for researching clothes, which is how I found Rapanui and Organic Basics (which in turn led me to find their climate credit products). I’d like to see the idea of this applied across other industries. If anyone here happens to know any, please share them!

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On the “plant your own trees” thing - The Woodland Trust sell loads of varieties of trees as saplings for about £9 each. So if you want to contribute to a charity that does manage and protect forests, and also plant trees yourself - this is a nice way to do it.

And this is what the whole B Corp movement is about, or “sustainable capitalism” in their terms. It is entirely possible to do, and being a profit-seeking company does not mean no good is being done. :deciduous_tree:

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I wish I had the space to plant a lot of trees, but I have got a lovely silver birch (from the Woodland Trust!) growing in my wildlife area which also has a pond and bird feeders.

It’s my favourite place in the garden!

(Ignore the poorly looking Hebe, it didn’t take very well to being repotted and is taking awhile to recover!)

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That looks lovely! Almost looks like you live in a castle with the old stone walls.

I’m very envious, from my gardenless first floor flat!

While not directly linked I came across this Search engine today which plants trees for you:

https://www.ecosia.org/

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I just looked at the Ecosia site which lists where they plant trees. I can’t help but notice these sites are all in countries with less developed democracies

I understand the need for this to keep their costs down and plant lots of trees… but doesn’t this put the trees at a risk of the government just deciding to do a mass deforestation? Or isn’t this indirectly funding authoritarian/not very democratic governments? What are the safeguards?

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To be honest I’ve not looked into it. I don’t actually use any other sites for searching other than Google. As much as I’d like to use Duck, Duck Go or Ecosia I just find I don’t get the results I need. Just thought it was interesting and posted!

Just resumed my subscription today as I’d had it on pause for the last few months whilst I waited to see what one of my employers was doing with my job, that’s staying to back to paying.

Nice to see they’ve had progress getting a few more planting sites on board along with the number of trees planted each month being around half a million.

Forgotten how much I missed reading about the various projects they support around the globe.

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I’ve actually moved to Bulb’s carbon offsetting subscription. My energy is with them too so it keeps things simple. I was never a fan of the name change to ecologi too, as shallow as that is. I much preferred the offset.earth moniker.

They’ve added some more UK tree planting in the last week, partnering with a new organisation.

I’ve emailed them some information about replanting UK sea grass in the hopes they might be able to help the oceans out a bit.

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I keep meaning to write a blog post about it, maybe this will give me the motivation to actually do it. Att the moment by blog is sparser than a parcel of land waiting to be rewilded.

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Disclaimer I’m currently doing some work for this company, and so let me know if this post is inappropriate.

You might be interested in Mossy Earth, they implement rewilding and reforestation projects from a similar monthly membership, particularly as you mentioned seagrass as that’s an area we’re currently building a project around, as well as Kelp restoration.

It’s actually on my medium/ long-term list to see if we could do an integration with Monzo in some way!

Feel free to ask me any questions, and also to let me know if I should remove the post.

Cheers,
Paul

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Had a quick look through Mossy Earth. At it’s core it appears to be similar to Ecologi, but where you differ is in the projects your support.

Ecologi seems to focus more on human communities and renewable projects, whereas mossy earth seems to focus on wildlife and biodiversity ecosystems, which are more aligned with what I care about most. I also didn’t like the Ecologi name change.

Hopefully they get around to finding a way of integrating with Monzo, maybe @Dan5 could point you in the direction of who to get in touch with to make that happen.

Can’t comment as to the appropriateness of your post, but I’m personally glad you shared it.

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Maybe split out to your own topic though as you’re hidden within this one

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Thanks for the summary, that seems a fair distinction between the two. I get the impression we have more direct involvement in our projects as well, with two internal biologists, but I don’t know for sure how Ecologi work. I’m glad you found it interesting though.

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Yeah, I wasn’t sure if that was even cheekier, but maybe I’ll create one on rewilding and then happy to remove/ edit if too cheeky.

Not cheeky at all, anyone’s free to post about pretty much everything. The fact you have transparency about the project at least stops any negative about you’re posting about them when you work for them.

It gives more visibility having a separate thread as the 2 services then don’t get mixed into one thread.

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Okay cool, thanks, I’ve posted here if anyone is interested in more context on rewilding, and I’ll leave this one for discussion on Ecologi :slight_smile:

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