The two founders of Treebytree, Diederik van Styrum (m) and Ton Löbker (r), together with their Managing Director, Dirk Bijl de Vroe (l).
NL – The newly-founded company Treebytree that is based in The Hague, the Netherlands has set itself the goal of rethinking the concept of promotional products. Treebytree offers a gift service with trees that are planted in the scope of a reforestation project in Africa. Two veterans of the promotional products industry came up with the idea: Diederik van Styrum, the founder of Xindao, and Ton Löbker, the former CEO of the Plato Group.
Treebytree collaborates with the NGO, Justdiggit, which promotes the revegetation together with local communities in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda. The aim is to stop the destruction of landscapes and preserve them as usable area for mankind, while at the same time combatting the climate change. Justdiggit enables local farmers to bring felled trees back to life using simple techniques. The trees remain in Africa, but they are registered with a distinct tree ID. According to Treebytree, the trees are intended as ideal gifts, which express the desire to create a better world.
Treebytree has developed an immersive, digital gift experience for the recipients of the tree, which can be sent per email or as a printed gift card containing a QR code. In this way, the recipient is whisked away on a virtual journey to Africa to the exact location of the tree, can find out what type of tree it is and gain insights into how much CO2 it will absorb over the course of time, how much water it stores and which positive impact it has on the local communities. The recipients can follow their tree for up to twenty years via their Treebytree account and are given regular updates on the project and the region in Africa where the tree is located.
Löbker and van Styrum are exclusively marketing the concept via the promotional products trade. Treebytree’s aim is to plant one billion trees before 2050.
