Two Dutch entrepreneurs want to utilise the promotional products industry as a force for doing good. Diederik van Styrum and Ton Löbker founded the company Treebytree in 2022 and developed a concept of how the trees of reforestation projects in Eastern Africa could be given away as a promotional product gift. Via a digital platform that can be branded just like other items, the virtual receipt of the real tree can be made into an impressive experience.
Diederik van Styrum and Ton Löbker have attended the PSI Show in Düsseldorf many times, however this year their appearance was a premiere. A huge tree towered up to the ceiling of the hall from the centre of their exhibition stand. Information panels were hanging from the tree’s crown. A large banner behind it bore the slogan “We enable companies to gift trees”. That sums the core of Treebytree’s business model up in a nutshell. Whereby the idea of giving away trees, is certainly not new. Involving the promotional products industry is though. The company is new, but the creative minds that run it are established industry players.
Van Styrum and Löbker already looked back on long and successful careers as entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry when they decided to found Treebytree in the spring of 2022. They launched it onto the Dutch market in the course of the year and less than twelve months after founding the company, they presented their product to the European promotional products industry at the PSI.
In high spirits, van Styrum and Löbker talked about the successful launch and the positive feedback that they have received from distributors from all over Europe. Their long-standing industry contacts are helping them find partnerships for the new product. For example, Löbker founded the full-service agency, Compacon, together with Raymond Vos in 1992, which provided tailor-made promotional products concepts. After Compacon was taken over by the Plato Group in 2017, Löbker took over the position of CEO at Plato.
In 1986, van Styrum was one of the co-founders of the company Xindao, which operating under the name XD connects is one of the largest importers and suppliers of promotional products on the European market today. In 2017, he sold the company to an investment fund and starting doing voluntary work for Justdiggit, a non-governmental organisation that initiates reforestation projects in Eastern Africa. Thanks to his entrepreneurial way of thinking he aided the management team in defining the strategic alignment of the NGO. Van Styrum explained: “I found the promotional products industry very interesting for many years and it was very good for me too. Now, it is time to give something backand make a positive impact on the environment.”
Transfer to the promo industry
F.t.r.: The company founders Ton Löbker and Diederik van Styrum together with the CEO Dirk Bijl de Vroe.
Working for Justdiggit was what triggered off the idea for Treebytree. Justdiggit implements reforestation programmes, such as for instance planting 10 million trees in Tanzania. Justdiggit is an established organisation in the Netherlands, it has gained recognition in Germany over the past years due to renowned ambassadors like the film director Volker Schlöndorff or the author Frank Schätzing and thanks to an external campaign in cooperation with Ströer. The NGO’s programme is financed by private donations, but also by companies like DHL, Tony‘s Chocolonely, Green Choice and many more.
Some of these companies wanted to symbolically give their business partners and employees a tree in order to include them in their ecological commitment. However, the NGO wasn’t able to accomplish this on such a large scale, so van Styrum looked around on the market for a solution. To his disappointment, he realised that bestowing trees is often a pretty uninspired affair. One often only received a simple certificate or an email from an NGO that one didn’t know, signed by an official with whom one maintained no personal relationship whatsoever.
When he met Ton Löbker in April 2022, who was still working for Plato at the time, they talked about the project. Van Styrum recounted: “We saw an opportunity that turned giving away a tree into a much nicer experience.” As experts from the promotional products industry they knew that it was all about creating such an experience. This is how the idea for Treebytree was born. “The idea developed within Justdiggit. But we realised that it would be necessary to invest a great deal to make it good and launch a fantastic gift experience onto the market. An NGO can’t really afford that,” stated van Styrum. Consequently, Löbker and himself raised the necessary capital to found the company.
Since the promotional products industry is currently undergoing change and sustainability is meanwhile a key issue, van Styrum and Löbker were sure that the concept of combining trees as gifts with the industry, has a promising future. As a social enterprise, Treebytree intends to yield turnovers by concentrating on the branding of the company that pays for the tree, rather than focusing on the branding of the NGO. All profit made over a certain threshold will then be completely donated to the reforestation projects of Justdiggit. The remaining money will be used to expand the company.
Reforestation in Africa
In order to make its ecological concept transparent, immediately after being founded Treebytreeapplied for certification as a “Benefit Corporation” (B Corp). Economic gain and ecology are to go hand in hand with each other and Löbker is convinced that on the one hand the connection between the promotional products industry and giving away a tree will create a much bigger market and on the other hand that the company can successfully position itself on the promotional products market using this USP: “The whole concept of regreening is unique within the promotional products sector.” If Treebytree informs the promotional products trade that a profit margin comparable to that of other items can be earned, then they think the distributors will be willing to include trees as part of their promotional products line-up.
Van Styrum and Löbker want to use the economic success as a force for doing good and are pursuing ambitious goals: Together with Justdiggit the company aims to plant one billion trees by the year 2050. This will not only absorb CO2, it will also stop the erosion of the soils so that they can store water more effectively. The people who live in these regions also profit from such projects: These are mostly families of smallholder farmers and shepherds. The effects of the reforestation help increase the agriculture and livestock-based income of the latter. It is very important to Justdiggit that they cooperate closely with the local people in order to raise awareness for the advantages of trees and forests – beyond their usage as a source of fuel or building material – to preserve traditional forest technology knowledge and enable them to carry on the regreening projects independently.
The recipient can follow the progress of the tree from a sapling onwards.
Justdiggit carries out reforestation projects together with the local population like here in Tanzania.
The benefit of such reforestation projects is undisputed however the major question remains to be how the concept of Treebytree can work as a promotional product since it is not really a tangible item. Löbker explained how they master this challenge: “We have to make the digital project as tangible as possible. The experience should be so good that everyone who receives a tree gets enthusiastic about it. We have to be able to help the distributors brand this experience with the logos and messages of their customers so that we can promote the positive brand image of their customers.” Van Styrum stressed that the focus on the customer journey is decisive. This is why Treebytree and Justdiggit are relying on the support of Havas, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world and they have also won over Lamalama, one of the leading digital agencies, for the implementation of the digital platform. “In order to create a unique experience, we have to cooperate with the best of the best,” van Styrum is convinced.
Anyone who receives a tree, is first of all sent an email or a greeting card with a QR code, which allows him to set off on a virtual journey, for instance to Tanzania. After a brief info film, the tree can be digitally “unwrapped” like a gift. Because the recipient is presented with a photo of the seedling, the GPS coordinates of the location on a satellite map and information about the type of tree. So that the new tree owners are involved long-term, over the period of three years they receive regular emails with updates about important plant data, how much CO2 the tree absorbs, but also information about what is happening in the region where the tree is planted. In total, the personal Treebytree account is to be available for up to 20 years and further trees can be added. In future, an app is to be provided that the recipients can use to call up information about the current status of their tree.
“We are well aware of the fact that one has to keep the recipient of the tree interested and there are many ways of doing this in an entertaining manner, such as via AR and gamification,” said van Styrum confirming that they have many ideas along these lines. All digital implementations feature the logo and colour scheme of the promoting company. No compromises have to be made with regards to the branding and duration of the advertising impact in comparison to conventional, physical promotional products.
Whereby Löbker is aware that the industry will take a lot of convincing: “It is a new concept: A digital product that is different from real products. Everyone, who is given a pen, knows it can be used to write with. The biggest challenge lies in ensuring that the distributors understand the concept and accept it.” In this respect, the experiences made at the PSI leave them optimistic. “When we demonstrate the actual experience on a smartphone, everyone understands immediately that this gift will evoke a very positive feeling in the recipient. And that is what our industry is about,” Löbker stated.
For those, who don’t want to do without physical products, there is also the possibility of having the QR code printed on any desired item – whereby here it is of course advisable to opt for sustainable products with a favourable carbon balance. The two founders are indeed sceptical towards this approach since they don’t want to make their platform available for greenwashing.
Contrary to physical products that consume energy for their production and thus as a rule release CO2, the trees even go beyond the efforts to be climate neutral, as van Styrum noted: “I you don’t want to cause a negative CO2 footprint with physical promotional products, but instead want to make sure it is a climate-positive gift that absorbs more CO2 than it causes, we are offering exactly the right solution.” Van Styrum even sees a trend towards more and more customers asking distributors for digital products and stressed: “We want to be at the forefront here.”
Future visions
The recipients receive data about the current
status of the tree online.
Van Styrum already pushed the theme sustainability within the European promotional products industry at Xindao and he considers himself to be a pioneer in this field. Together with Löbker his aim now is to set new benchmarks with Treebytree. He explained how the concept can be expanded and how for instance dying coral reefs can be brought back to life in cooperation with other NGOs. There is no Reefbyreef yet, but the plans of the Dutch company are ambitious. To run the daily operations at their head office in the Hague, they have employed Den Haag Dirk Bijl de Vroe as CEO and Michael Colthoff as Business Development Manager. They are currently looking for employees to help them expand on the German market and long-term they also foresee marketing their idea worldwide.
Treebytree wants to make its contribution within the changing industry. “I consider it to be extremely important for the promotional products industry to take over responsibility on the sustainability front, otherwise the future of this industry could be at risk,” Löbker reasoned. “But we understand that one can’t just sell trees in this industry. That won’t work.”
Nevertheless, the Treebytree team are asserting themselves to make sure the share of trees on the promotional products market grows. Van Styrum and Löbker have started the ball rolling and hope to be able to reach many companies via the networks of the promotional products distributors and implement their economic strength for a good cause. Involving the industry in the battle against global warming and its consequences aims to bring hope, not just for the reforested regions, but indeed for the entire world.
// Andreas J. Haller
photos: Andreas Haller (1), © WA Media; Treebytrees (4)
