Ecologi

‘Making Climate Action Accessible for Everyone’

Ecologi was created to give individuals and businesses a meaningful way to act in the fight against climate change, funding carbon offsetting and planet-positive projects through a monthly  subscription service.

Research has found that most people want to support climate action but struggle knowing how to help or even where to start (EU-Startups, 2023). The same is true of companies, 8 out of 10 businesses want to be more sustainable but are unsure of the right first steps. Ecologi solves this problem, offering monthly subscription services for individuals, families, and businesses. Providing a cheap and low-effort way to contribute towards climate action, with clear feedback metrics to show the impact each user has had.

By pooling small amounts of resources from a large number of individuals and entities Ecologi can channel significant amounts of capital towards two proven and actionable climate change mitigation tools: carbon avoidance and reforestation.

‘At Ecologi, we aim to make climate action trustworthy and tangible, removing the barriers businesses experience when getting started on their net-zero journey’

Ecologi CEO & Co-founder Elliot Coad

CO2 avoidance projects

Ecologi’s carbon avoidance projects cover a wide range of methods across a number of regions, from wind farms in India to fuel efficient stoves in Kenya. However, they all aim to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions before they are released into the atmosphere. Furthermore, all of the projects funded through Ecologi subscriptions are certified by the Gold or Verified Carbon standards for environmental programmes.

Reforestation: a problem or solution?

Ecologi also uses the funds from subscription fees to support reforestation projects across the world, helping to develop huge ‘carbon sinks’. Whilst tree planting can be an extremely beneficial process, it must be done with consideration of local ecosystems and biodiversity. Many reforestation projects fail to achieve this, planting hectares of monoculture forests or even planting trees where they would not normally occur. Actions that ultimately ‘cause harm in the name of doing good’ (Bethanie Walder, 2022).

ESG: critical assesement & ethical labour

Ecologi strives to ensure it’s projects reforest responsibly, taking significant care to select reforestation partners with ecological credentials, experience, community involvement, and ethical labour practices. An example being Eden Reforestation Projects, their largest tree-planting partner, who focus on employing local people for each project, creating sustainable long-term relationships between local people and their environments (Eden Projects, 2023).

Furthermore, Ecologi examine each project proposal they support, ensuring ethical and sustainable reforestation that furthers the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Transparency

To truly make climate action accessible for everyone it must also be transparent, so that providers can be held accountable for the promises they make. A key goal of Ecologi is to provide this transparency, as lack of transparency acts as a barrier to involvement because people are unsure if their money is being used effectively. Each month the company posts it’s financials on online and provides regular evidence of it’s carbon avoidance and reforestation projects. Building user trust and confidence in the platform. In total, 80% of all the revenue received goes directly to funding plant saving projects.

The Success of Ecologi’s no-nonsense business model is clear from the data (Ecologi, 2023):

• 41,000 members in 1400 days

• 69.0 million trees funded

• 2.7 million tons of CO2 avoided

All funded through subscriptions costing as little as £4.70 a month! For more information about Ecologi and their climate mitigation strategies take a look at their website: https://ecologi.com/about

References

Ecologi: ‘About us’. (2023) (https://ecologi.com/about). [Accessed: 14th August, 2023]

Eden Reforestation Projects: ‘What we do’. (2023). (https://www.edenprojects.org/).

EU-Startups: ‘Interview with Ecologi Co Founder and CEO Elliot Coad’. (https://www.eu-startups.com/2022/11/ecologi-wants-to-make-climate-action-easy-for-everyone-interview-with-co-founder-and-ceo-elliot-coad/). [Accessed: 12th August, 2023].

NY Times. (2022). ‘Tree Planting Is Booming. Here’s How That Could Help, or Harm, the Planet’. March, 15th, 2022: Section A, pg. 7. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/climate/tree-planting-reforestation-climate.html). [Accessed: 13th August, 2023].