Plant22.com

Since the beginning of this blog, I have thought quite a bit about how to best fund reforestation efforts.  This has been an exploration and a struggle.  I have tried planting trees.  But how many can I actually plant?  I have tried encouraging friends to contribute, but that's a tough row to hoe.  Everyone cares but nobody has the time.  I have even tried starting a meet up group in my town of Providence, RI.  Check out PermacultureProvidence.org.  That's my best effort to date.  It is thriving, with 56 members and counting in only four months, which proves that I am getting better at this effort....  but is it really enough?

Fortunately, trees grow like weeds here in New England.  This is a blessing and a curse for an activist.  Of what value is it to reforest an abandoned lot when that lot is already reforesting itself?  Although I will continue to plant high-value edible plants here in Rhode Island, what the world really needs is more trees planted in deforested wastelands.

Now that my son is 7 and in first grade, I have a little more time to strategize.  No longer am I trying to do the crazy balance of working part-time and playing stay-at-home dad.  Yes, I still have seven years of home maintenance to catch up on, but I also have the luxury to procrastinate the least immediate issues, like the peeling corner boards and the compacted lawn.  And when I have time to strategize, I tend to come up with big projects.  This one is a biggie!

I have rallied several friends and we are starting a business.  It is called Plant22.com.  Right now it is totally behind the scenes, but we are building it.  The goal is to sell environmentally responsible products, made in the USA, and have an average of 22 trees planted for every product purchased.

For most of our lives, businesses have been perfecting the science of offshore sourcing and production in low-wage regions of the world.  In the process we, as consumers, have passively, often unknowingly, encouraged some pretty terrible stuff.  The result has been human and environmental catastrophes.  Now we know, but sometimes it almost seems to late to go back...

The idea is to turn this model on its head. 

At Plant22.com, we are building a marketplace where the products are American made, and proceeds go to replanting forests and jungles.  The store will sell products that we rely on every day.  It will sell games that have nothing to do with computers.  It will sell healthy kitchen products and clothes that are made in the USA.  It will harness the power and efficiency of e-commerce to support artisans, artists and hard-working Americans while, at the same time, giving aid to Haiti, Ethiopia, Madagascar and other deforested countries.  That aid will be in the form of reforestation work done by the local communities.

Everyone will benefit:

• Customers will find quality, heirloom products, made to last for generations.
• American craftspeople will benefit from meaningful work and fair salaries
• Poorer countries will benefit from the regeneration of natural resources
• Communities will learn responsible forestry, investing sweat equity and building confidence.
• Everyone will feel good about working together to make a difference

We will do this by partnering with great organizations like The Eden Projects.  These folks know how to get the job done.  While raise funds by selling responsible products, they will be out there in the trenches, working in the communities and teaching people how to plant trees.

Our store is on the verge of becoming a reality.  Keep your eyes open for the soft-launch and crowd-funding campaign.

Plant22.com 
Believe in the future!