In just eleven short years, they’ve planted over 75 million trees to date.
Those 75 million tress have removed millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, lifted entire communities out of poverty, and reforested over 5,000 hectares of land (that’s equal to 12,000 football fields).
And they’re on a mission to plant 1 billion trees by 2030.
Yesterday, David Luba, co-founder of tentree, joined us in a webinar to talk about their partnership with our friends over at PCNA. In 2021, PCNA’s TriMark partnered with tentree to make tentree apparel available to the industry. In this session, talked with David about the critical thresholds they crossed while building a high-impact brand. We encourage you to watch this entire recording with your team but in the meantime, here are two key takeaways from our conversation and a few action points you can apply today:
Be Environmental-ish.
Not all of the companies you work with have a strong, environmental commitment. But David Luba encouraged us not to scoff at that and instead, lead our clients gently in this area, help them think “Environmental-ish.” Often the subject of sustainability is confusing. The name alone is freighted with baggage and it’s intimidating to customers. David says, “Make it attainable and accessible and not intimidating. Think progress over perfection. Being environmental-ish is a gateway to being an environmentalist. Take one foot in front of the other. Tiny collective actions taken together can make one big impact.”
Be Restorative
According to IMD, there are five stages of a sustainability journey: reactive, defensive, accommodating, proactive, and finally, restorative. As much as we encourage you to lead clients gently, there is a simple way you can leapfrog all the difficult knowledge about sustainability and just begin contributing back to the environment and that’s by partnering with restorative companies. In the branded merch business, we often think about the negative impact (as we should), about how we can reduce our impact on the planet. But how about flipping the script for once and engage your team and your customers with the positive message of being a restorative business? Restorative means that you and your clients make commitments to “take nothing from the earth that cannot be replaced.” tentree exemplifies this mission. For every t-shirt you sell/buy, they will plant ten trees. Too often, the position of sustainability is cloaked with negative connotations but instead of being reactive and defensive, this allows you to be positive and offensive.
A few ideas to kick-start action
Shops: Add more restorative products in your shops and celebrate it! Example: If you have a tentree product in one of your shops for a customer, are you sharing that story on the product page and in the description? Every item should carry that story.
Employee education programs: Flip the script on negativity and be positive, use tentree products as the perfect way to educate employees about the benefits of contributing to restorative causes.
Restorative kits: Develop kits where every component, from the shipping container to the products inside, are a partnership with only restorative suppliers and use that positive message of hope and healing to impact change.
Review client values and tie them to practices. One of the best exercises you can do is to review your best client’s values and then ask the question: How can we -through the vehicle of product- help bring these values to life by encouraging actual practices? For example, if your client values sustainability, does the way they buy honor this mission thoroughly. Can you tie their values to a product campaign that honors their commitment?
Begin an environmental-ish campaign for your customers. Call it what it is: environmental-ish. Use it in your marketing and in your conversations with customers. There’s freedom in the truth of it, the easy access of it. Teaching customers that small steps toward the right action are much better than inertia and immobility.
Thank you, David Luba for joining us (on your birthday even!) to share your message of hope and encouragement with the commonsku community. We were honored to share the virtual stage with you and to help spread the good news of restoration!
