Tentree is a privately owned, Vancouver based apparel company founded by brothers; Kalen and Derrek Emsley and David Luba. The company was created with a simple idea: to plant ten trees for every item sold. The Emsley brothers used this as their vision as they grew up tree planting and decided to use a social enterprise as a direct way to solve environmental issues.
Tentree goes beyond tree planting and e-commerce by purposefully weaving environmental and ethically sustainable initiatives and practices into every detail of the company. For example, the company uses eco materials and fabrics such as organic cotton, hemp, eucalyptus fibre (known as tencel), coconut shells (for buttons) and cork for zippers, to name a few. The company measures its success in trees planted, not sales.
Beyond planting trees tentree is most dedicated to making an impact throughout their value chain by partnering with villages, charities, suppliers and employees who all share the same goal of seeing their combined efforts and hard work create positive impacts on social and environmental issues. The main focus for the company is supporting rural villages in places such as Madagascar, Senegal, Haiti and Nepal. Tentree supports these local economies and environments by giving villagers secure jobs in tree planting farms. This partnership has proven to create successful micro-economies that are self sustaining. On example is of villagers in Madagascar who have been planting Mangrove trees, these trees have helped protect the village from cyclones and storms, and the roots have started to create microbiomes in the rivers and ocean which draws fish and biodiversity to the area which was previously ruined by deforestation and climate change. Tree planting has given these villagers food, shelter, jobs and a stable economy which has been the main goal and motive of the company.
In terms of sustainability and marketing, tentree is doing an incredible job focusing on the environment and people over profit. There is a lot to learn from tentree as a company and I believe other businesses should create similar business models by using capitalism and social enterprise as a direct way to solve environmental and social issues.
