Here’s how you can play a key part in actively reversing climate change
Ecologi is a platform for climate action encouraging and enabling people, from individuals all the way up to large businesses, to fund climate solutions
Written by HYER NEWSROOM
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There are enough solutions out there which, if supported and funded, could undo 30 years of carbon damage by avoiding 1,500 billion tonnes of CO2. This is an opportunity Ecologi is seizing upon. Initially founded by a group of frustrated environmentalists in Bristol, Ecologi sets out to show that all hope is not yet lost - and despite public perception, there really are things that you as an individual can do to help.
Aside from the obvious, one of the largest problems we have with climate issues is the lack of visibility. Over the last few years, knowledge of plastic pollution has become mainstream and people are, rightly, troubled by it.
However, it isn’t only the visible aspects of the climate crisis that we should be concerning ourselves with. There is tangibility with something like plastic pollution, as opposed to say carbon pollution. When we think of environmentalism we may only be thinking about reducing our plastic intake, and potentially disregarding the carbon issue we face.
The issue of visibility is made more difficult by the fact that the climate crisis as a whole is always vying for the top spot in mainstream news and media as it is. Climate issues largely feel invisible or intangible, so it’s easy for individuals to feel hopeless about helping in any way. People are left questioning; what is my actual role in this? And will it even achieve anything?
Interview with Ecologi CEO & Co-Founder, Elliot Coad
“It’s a slow journey, but it’s one that we as Ecologi can help with. When you take those small actions they will keep on stacking up, and that’s what we need - incrementally just doing good stuff.”
Elliot Coad - CEO & Co-Founder
Ecologi focuses specifically on how one small action could lead to another, creating a ripple effect of significant change. While the task of taking on larger aspects of the climate crisis can seem overwhelming and insurmountable, tackling it through small, easily actioned changes is a far more realistic way to engage the masses in helping.
For example, if you sign up to Ecologi as an individual it may be that you just plant a tree, fund an amazing climate solution or reduce your carbon footprint. But that one small action will likely lead to another action, then another, until soon you are actively thinking about environmental issues more than you were before.
All of those mini steps taken may feel small at the time, but before you know it you have become a considerate environmentalist through incremental steps. Ecologi helps break down the seemingly overwhelming task of reversing climate change into manageable bitesize chunks.
Ecologi and Eden Reforestation Projects has managed to plant no less than 664 million trees in Madagascar since 2007
At the heart of what Ecologi is doing is the firm belief that when these solutions are sufficiently funded, one day they really will reverse climate change. Of course there are things we should be doing in terms of reversing our own carbon footprint, which is one aspect of what Ecologi helps shed light on. But there is also a major opportunity to get behind an inordinate amount of other climate solutions, for example planting a billion trees a day. When you think about it, we should all be doing this, either in the tens of thousands large businesses could contribute or the spare ten pounds an individual could give; all of our “pocket change” should be going towards doing good right now.
This is the thinking that sparked the idea for Ecologi, and it all started with a cup of coffee. Founder Elliot, while buying his daily commute coffee, thought to himself; “having bought some 1500 coffees just from this one place, if I took that coffee money - even just one cup per week’s worth - and put it towards climate action, what impact could I have?” After a little research, Elliot was blown away to see the amazing solutions he could get behind with just this small, simple change – and for very little personal sacrifice.
This is just one of many examples of how tangible we can make the climate crisis seem if we only shift the lens. To put it into context, that one coffee per week translates approximately to planting 8 trees per month in Madagascar, Nicaragua or Mozambique, as well as offsetting one’s own carbon footprint using Gold Standard carbon offsets. If all of that can be achieved just from pocket change (at least for those who are well off enough to have a takeaway coffee every morning), then what excuse remains for not taking on the responsibility for really fixing the planet?
From this initial basis, Elliot created the idea of a subscription service that could reverse climate change. Most of us have subscriptions to Netflix, Apple, Amazon, and any number of other services which we don’t hesitate to contribute monthly for.
So why not do the same while actively helping the planet? Our secret weapon as a society is collective action; being able to have an influence on the world around us with our actions. We are already getting much better at joining these dots, proven by Ecologi’s growing network.
Around 30,000 individuals and businesses are currently working on the Ecologi platform. For some people they might have “only” funded a few dozen trees in Madagascar. But if others sign up as a direct result of the first individual sharing their public profile, the original person who has only planted 20 odd trees is now indirectly responsible for about 500,000 trees being planted.
Another example of the power of this knock-on effect is when a relatively small business who signed up with Ecologi and simply put a badge on their footer, and about 80 other companies signed up as a direct result of seeing this. The amount of carbon reductions associated with this very small business is now in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes. That’s equivalent to approximately 2 million barrels of oil not being burnt, thanks to the small but powerful influence this one company had. Put simply - this collective action thing is really quite exciting.
“We need excitement and hope for the future of our climate. If we can show that small actions lead to much larger ones, then that will one day kick off a revolution in climate action.
And we sure as heck need a revolution right now, because there are not many years left that we need to get things in order.”
Elliot Coad - CEO & Co-Founder
We are at a point in our history where it is essential for anyone who is passionate about the planet, or even anxious about the future, to think on a larger scale about their own contributions. It’s a natural response to bury our heads in the sand when overwhelmed with the information.
It can feel out of our hands, an intangible political issue or a problem that’s just for big businesses to solve. But really, we need to be able to connect to the things we are passionate or concerned about. Even small actions feel good when you are actually doing something about it.
We’re on the right side of history if we’re putting climate and biodiversity at the forefront of our hearts, and Ecologi shows you how to do just that – all for the cost of a few cups of coffee.
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