Are you ready to plant? - We are!

How it all began 

Wilhelm: "Sustainability? Wasn't my topic for a long time. My world was banks and management consultancy. That's where I was at home. At some point I ended up in the meat industry and suddenly I understood how incredibly bad meat is for the planet. I started researching and was overwhelmed by a wave of horror scenarios on the internet:

Factory farming, the Amazon disaster, water pollution, overfertilization, Monsanto, dying forests, climate change, drought, hunger, overpopulation, wars over resources

Stop!

Internet off, idea generator on!

I was of the opinion that it's not too late. We can do something, let's tackle it. But what?"

Heinrich: "I've always been green, I've made my everyday life sustainable. And my job? Well, I didn't exactly go out on boats to save whales, nor did I chain myself to trees. I worked in a software company.

Then, in 2019, my personal wake-up moment: Leander, our son, was born. I looked at him and asked myself: what kind of world will this child grow up in? Will he be as well off at my age as I am right now? And what am I doing to help? - I wanted to actively do something about the climate crisis. But what?"

Wilhelm and Heinrich: "We didn't know each other. We worked in different industries, but we shared the same idea - and a friend. He connected us in 2020, we met up for a few Kölsch, the glasses were empty, the notebooks full. And even before the bar closed, we were able to toast a concrete business model. Planted was born. Cheers then!"

Two types, one idea, three pillars:

We had decided to found a start-up together that would enable people to do even more for the environment and thereby REALLY save the world. According to the motto: You do your best, we do the rest.

We wanted (and still want) to give people the opportunity to do more to combat climate change, because let's be honest: does a bamboo toothbrush in the bathroom make a difference? Or is it enough to take a jute bag with you when you go shopping? There is definitely still room for improvement!

So what we came up with for our potential customers was this: Stop climate change at the click of a mouse, from the comfort of your sofa, kitchen table or train.

The idea:

Pillar I Collecting donations and planting trees - Forest Made in Germany ♥

Pillar II is to collect donations and investin CO₂ compensation projects worldwide, as it will be several years before the young trees are large and productive.

Pillar III educate people and show them how they can save CO₂, because far too many are still unaware of the true extent of the climate crisis.

Okay, plant trees, now where?

But how and where to plant the trees? That's not exactly something you learn at university.

But one person had learned: Jan, a forestry scientist and, coincidentally, an acquaintance of Wilhelm. He knows that reforestation is one of the most effective ways to combat climate change and has already taken an important first step by planting his first 10,000 trees. 

Jan: "Whistling a song through the green forest and counting trees? At the moment I'm mainly counting tree skeletons and bark beetles. Sometimes it feels like I'm not wandering through forests, but through tree cemeteries. Forests are dying all over the world and in recent years in Germany to an extreme degree. It has been given a real shock by the past hot and far too dry summers and it is so deep-seated that a lot of it will die in the coming years too. What we urgently need now are mixed crops, only these will survive. Thanks to Planted, I finally have the chance to plant exactly that."

To cut a long story short, Jan was of course on board and Planted came to his own climate forester, a man of the trade who didn't want to manage coniferous woodland, but wanted to grow living forests in Germany.

All good things come in fours!

Jan got to the root of the problem, Heinrich is still in charge of the website, Wilhelm is the CEO and numbers man in the team. But who would take over the communication? Nothing without moss, but wordless? We needed someone for communication.

Cindy: "I grew up with the message that everyone in life should make the world a little bit better. I always thought that art makes the world a better place, so I did a Bachelor and Master of Arts and then worked in a gallery. Sometimes, at trade fairs, I noticed how much waste there was: stands that had just been set up were simply flattened after the event, all the valuable resources simply thrown away.

At some point, I left the industry. It was time for a change that would REALLY make the world a little bit better."

And that's what I've been doing with social media and public relations work for Planted ever since: because that's how even more people find out about our mission to protect Mother Earth .

Growing air so that we don't run out of air

And yet, despite all our first steps and progress, we are still far from perfect. Cindy suffers from her weakness for avocado toast, Heinrich owns his own car. Wilhelm just can't keep his hands off the Nutella jar and Jan is always overcome by a craving for meat when he walks past the organic butcher. And that's okay. Because none of us is perfect. But if everyone does their bit, the world becomes a better place. 

And this is our vision: We want to make climate protection as accessible as possible - for everyone. We are not the solution for everything; each of us should first think about #reduce and #reuse. Environmental protection is our central message and is always at the forefront. But if we all work together, we can create the solution together and look forward to a hopeful and liveable future. 

Because don't forget: everything will be fine in the end. And if it's not good, then it's not the end.