Sustainability
MEET THE CHANGE MAKER
“It was a massive wildfire. Hundreds of people died in a few hours because it spread so quickly,” says the 28-year-old, who now lives in London. “This made me rethink what I was really interested in and how I wanted to spend my time. I knew I wanted to do something that would help the environment.” Godefroy was just finishing a degree in Business Management at WBS, followed by a Master’s in Management at London Business School. Though he considered prestigious institutions in France and Switzerland, the UK – and Warwick in particular – held a unique appeal. Godefroy said: “The UK brought opportunities that didn’t exist elsewhere – the activities, the social life, the hundreds of societies, and the alumni networks.” However, he wasn’t prepared for the size of Warwick’s campus. “Coming from a small village, I didn’t imagine I’d see anything like this outside of the US,” he says. At Warwick, he learned to dance and started his own society – a discussion group for international politics. This was a valuable dry run for founding his own company. “There are many parallels,” explains Godefroy. “You need to pull the right people together, you need to be clear about what you are doing and why, you need to be active on social media and so on. I had a lot of people around me who were excited about what I was doing.” After university, he joined forces with a friend, Jules Buker, who shared his ecological concerns, and they identified tree planting as an effective strategy to address environmental degradation. Godefroy says: “We wanted maximum impact, replanting areas that have been deforested or are bare, bringing back
for human and natural threats and via satellite images. If starting a company was exhausting, then building a team representing nearly a dozen nationalities has presented different challenges. “It’s completely different from having everyone from the same country,” he says. “As you grow, you need to create the right environment for the people who are working for you – it becomes less about execution and more about ensuring everyone is where they can thrive.” Today, Treeapp is slick and user friendly, with new features planned for the coming year. Gamification is key to getting users on board, Godefroy says, and they tend to be a loyal bunch. He is careful to select the right partner businesses. Those who advertise via the app have excellent ethical credentials – low-waste food retailers and sustainable cosmetics, for instance. Treeapp, also boasts 2,000 sponsors who fund tree planting, including cosmetics giant L’Oréal and delivery firm DPD. Attracting new businesses takes up much of Godefroy’s time. Along the way, he and Jules have earned international acclaim, including B-corp certification and inclusion in the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 list. “Even if you make mistakes, you learn from them and improve,” says Godefroy. “This journey is about growth, enjoying every step along the way, and leaving the world a better place.”
Seed money Turning digital ads into trees
local fauna and flora, giving jobs to local communities, and bringing people together.” Sleep was in short supply during the early years. “When you’re starting something you’re passionate about, you’re just super excited every day.” After planting the UK’s chalky South Downs, the team moved to Madagascar. Today, they plant in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Last year, Treeapp introduced mangrove trees along Haiti’s coastline to protect it from storms. Close to his former home in Athens, the company is transforming a former dumping ground into a thriving woodland of cypress and carob. There are three stages to planting trees. Great effort goes into securing the land – often in nature reserves – and ensuring it’s fit for planting. The planting itself is relatively straightforward. Treeapp works with local communities, forestry experts, and the UN to ensure their approach suits the location. Once established, the vulnerable fledgling plants are tended and monitored, both by teams on the ground who watch
I t is an ingeniously simple concept – watch a short ad on your phone every day and plant a tree for free. Godefroy Harito was fresh out of business school when he launched his social enterprise Treeapp, offering people the chance to do just that. Six years on, by
It has not been easy. Deer have nibbled the oaks and wild cherries planted around the UK, while the company has been forced to withdraw from geopolitically fraught regions such as Mozambique, leaving behind newly planted saplings. Godefroy also weathered a misjudged change of direction before returning to Treeapp’s original mission – plant as many of the right trees as possible in the right places. Born in France and raised in Greece, Godefroy witnessed the annual march of wildfires through local woodland when he was a child. Over the years, those fires grew in intensity, fuelled by hotter summers, stronger winds, and more rubbish. In 2018, a particularly vicious blaze tore through the neighbourhood outside Athens where he grew up.
force of personality and the dedication of a 100,000-strong community, his company has managed to plant some 5.5 million trees across 20 countries. Over their lifetime, those trees
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Sustainable Development Goals
will absorb nearly 600,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases.
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