Tentree — For the Love of Trees

Kicking off our first interview with TenTree, the B-Corps second most highly rated Sustainable Apparel Company behind Patagonia. Tentree’s business model is planting back our forests, one purchase at a time

We believe it won’t be a million perfect environmentalists, but rather a billion imperfect environmentalists supporting each other on their journey towards living more sustainably.

Introduction

A new study published in Nature magazine estimates the planet has 3.04 trillion trees. Sadly, these 3.04 trillion trees are being devastated at an alarming rate with 46% of the world’s trees having been cleared over the past 12,000 years. There is no shortage of startling statistics to demonstrate the ecological devastation occurring:

• Every year, 15.3 billion trees are chopped down
• It’s estimated that 46,000–58,000 square miles are lost every year, which is equivalent to 48 football fields are lost every minute every year
• The United States is doing its fair share to contribute to the problem along with Europe, Japan and other industrialized nations, the US consumes over twelve times more wood products than non-industrialized countries
• Despite having less than 5% of the world’s population, the US consumes more than 30% of the world’s paper.

Deforestation and unsustainable business practice, along with insufficient government regulations and oversight are some of the many dynamics at the forefront of creating a more sustainable planet and preserving the precious biodiversity and wildlife. With so much at stake, and time running out, the public’s expectations are that business and the public sector would modify their practices. Yet, 44 percent of the 865 companies most associated with deforestation risk hasn’t made any public commitments to address the problem. According to “Targeting Zero Deforestation,” just 484 of the 865 companies that supply change identifies with the most forest-risk exposure have committed to sourcing commodities sustainably, and just 72 of those companies, or 8 percent, have committed to achieving either “zero deforestation” for at least one forest-risk commodity.

The accelerated rate of deforestation is causing devastating and irreversible economic and environmental consequences. Deforestation is contributing to 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions that are paving the way to the extinction of 28,000 species, within the next 25 years. We must act quickly, however, companies and governments are unwilling to hold themselves accountable.

With great despair and an environment on the verge of collapse, has come great opportunity. The industry has the potential to recreate its business practices and create a new generation of consumerism with companies that are more committed to sustainable supply chain and sourcing practices and empowering consumers to shop more sustainably.

Companies, like the one featured in this interview, are paving a pathway to reverse deforestation trends at alarming rates and plant back our forests one purchase at a time.

Overview

The first interview of the Capitalism Reimagined series kicks off with Tentree, a sustainable apparel company that is ushering in a new business model based on sustainable environmental development. TenTree encourages environmental stewardship through earth-first apparel. For every item purchased Tentree plants ten trees through its planting projects and partnerships with charitable organizations that are rehabilitating natural habitats. In 2019, Tentree was ranked the second-highest B-Corp apparel Company behind only Patagonia.

Recently, I chatted with Derrick Emsley, whose tree planting journey started at age 16 when he and his brother attempted to capitalize on the future of sustainability through carbon offsetting credits. Ultimately, they planted over 150,000 trees while selling carbon offset contracts. While carbon offsetting ended up not being in their future, this experience was just the beginning of Derrick’s tree planting journey.

During college, Derrick worked with his fellow co-founders to start Tentree. By November, Tentree will have planted over 50 million trees — providing local jobs, food security and environmental benefits. Their biggest goal is still ahead, to plant 1 billion trees planted by 2030.

“We made this mess one little thing at a time, and that’s exactly how we’re going to fix it.”

How are you holding up given the circumstances and uncertain future at the moment?

Throughout the year, like everyone, our team has experienced high, highs and low lows. While the future is filled with unpredictability, certain trends such as sustainability, mission-driven and digitally focused companies will position themselves at the forefront. Working in the retail sector has been volatile to say the least.

This year, we had anticipated our business to be 55% of online sales. Covid has accelerated our move towards a more direct model with the lion share of sales growth coming from our online channel in 2020. By year end, we expect online will account for up to 75–80% of our total business. While we thought people would be prioritizing groceries and such, working from home has led to a pattern in buying behaviors that translates into comfortable clothing, sustainability and accessibility, which directly align with Tentree’s mission.

We still believe in the retail sector and have worked with some amazing partners. We looked forward to continuing to work with them to confront challenges and unforeseen volatility in the next 12–24 months due to Covid.

What has resiliency meant to you personally and professionally during these uncertain times?

There is certainly additional angst and our entire team is dealing with a great deal of uncertainty both personally and professionally. Prior to COVID, our sales were split relatively evenly between e-commerce and retail. Over the course of this year, our eCommerce platform has increased dramatically, now making up 75–80% of the business.

To us, resiliency during this time has been the ability to push forward and understand when the direction that you’re heading in needs to shift. We are trying to create a culture that is open and adaptable and ensure that there is stability for our team. In addition, we are motivating them to get on board and get excited about the changes.

We have begun to ask ourselves what our vision of a post-covid world is and how can we remain relevant while ensuring that we’re keeping people excited and feeling empowered to drive change by shopping with us.

Where do you trace back your entrepreneurial spirit and ability to cope and overcome these uncertain times?

My brother and I started a tree company when we were in high school. We wanted to sell carbon offsets around the time of cap and trade discussions were occurring during the Kyoto protocol convention. Given the discussion that was occurring at the international level, we believed our efforts aligned with and be accelerated by this international government program and the commitments happening on the world stage.

Starting our first tree planting Company at a young age, while in high school, required waking up before 4 am to plow the tree farms. Accomplishing this before high school gave us more than a fair taste of entrepreneurship and the work we had cut out for us. However, we quickly realized that despite thinking we had an innovative and exciting tree planting solution directly tied to an international initiative in the Kyoto protocol, the business wasn’t going to turn into what we hoped.

Despite the failure at a young age, it instilled in us the power that tree planting could have on our planet but that we would need to figure out a different vehicle to scaling tree planting. We believe the way to scale tree planting was using business vehicles to power consumers to drive impact and demand.

What’s the main problem you’re setting out to solve?

There is no silver bullet. Our why is tree planting. Trees have a fundamental connection to us as humans and are grounded in our existence on this planet. It took a lot of decisions to get to the problems challenging us today and it will take as many solutions to address the problems that led us here.

“We made this mess one little thing at a time, and that’s exactly how we’re going to fix it. Our goal is to make living sustainably, simple. Big change starts small.We believe the world is changed through inclusive environmentalism not by one individual solution by one person.”

For Tentree, apparel is a powerful symbol in the fight for sustainability. If you’re willing to wear a product with a logo or symbol on your chest, you’re willing to promote your values. The power that our community has is based on their values and willingness to advocate for those values. Aligning your mission and products so closely with consumers' values allows your consumers to be the biggest advocates of your product.

While our why is trees, our how is the community. Right now, a lot of environmental missions are consumed by the “world is ending.” For us, big change starts small.

We believe it won’t be a million perfect environmentalists, but rather a billion imperfect environmentalists supporting each other on their journey towards living more sustainably.

What are the biggest misconceptions and the biggest disconnect that investors and customers have about the problem you’re trying to address?

We want customers’ perception of our brand to be affirmed in their understanding of how deeply committed we are to tree planting and the resources we’ve invested in terms of time and money to address systemic environmental issues through our model. Recently, we invested in an auditing and technology platform that digitizes the impact and carbon sequestration of our products. Through the auditing and transparency tool, every product has a unique token or qr code and one can scan that and find out where their trees have been planted.

Tell us about the most significant pivot you’ve made.

Why aren’t you making your product sustainably? This question was posed by a customer years ago while we were fundraising. Since then, the most significant pivot that we’ve made has been the sourcing and production in our supply chain, which has led us to become one of the most sustainable apparel brands in the world. One might assume, or take for granted, our Company’s commitment to sustainability. However, that hasn’t always been the case. Over time, we have evolved and developed a deeper understanding of the apparel industry’s impact on the environment. With this in-depth understanding, we have doubled down on making our products more sustainable and aligning our supply chain with the mission of the company.

This resulted in little to no sustainability in the early years to effectively 100% of our supply chain being sustainably sourced. While this erased already narrow margins, we realized that for us to be true to our values we had to commit to sustainably sourcing our products even if it meant reinventing our supply chain.

What is the biggest challenge in trying to scale a social venture?

Our biggest challenge has been recruiting and nurturing the right people to grow with our brand. Balancing growth and our commitment to doing it in a financially and environmentally sustainable manner has been an interesting dilemma and complex.

At the same time, scaling the impact side of the business has presented new obstacles as well. Planting a million trees a year is easier than planting 50 million or 100 million. It will require new infrastructure and technology, as well as tracking and monitoring if we’re going to continue to hold ourselves to the highest of standards.

What role, if any do you envision social entrepreneurship, and the social enterprise ecosystem more broadly playing in helping us build a better world post-COVID?

Social entrepreneurs are the tip of the sphere, with a whole new momentous wave of organizations that speak to the values of their customers. This is playing a huge role in driving a new wave of consumerism.

At the end of the day, the majority of power is in the hands of the consumer. What is going to drive social enterprise is people who actively vote every single day with their dollars and align their values with the companies that speak most directly to their values. I believe this will drive social enterprise in the post COVID world.

The most inspirational piece of advice or informative guidance you’ve received?

Developing an enhanced and new perspective around taking risks and the difference between risk vs. volatility. People have a misconception about risk. Risk is existential. Volatility is bumps in the road.

I believe covid is the risk in our industry and that Tentree is experiencing volatility. There has never been more volatility that has also created a bigger opportunity to create meaningful and lasting change.

What is your worldview on capitalism and your venture in relation to the capitalist system

Capitalism is the worst economic system, except all of those others that have been tried. At the end of the day, what needs to change about capitalism is that for many years it’s been an extractive system. The system overall needs circularity and to be able to refuel itself without taking from others, but giving back.

What are the broader implications of your venture at scale in creating a fairer and more sustainable capitalism?

Within the next 5 years, our goal is to plant 100 million trees/year. For us, environmental justice is most important. Our goal is to create a fair and just society through tree planting and making sure every single person has a part to play in building a more sustainable and equitable system.

What role do you envision the social enterprise ecosystem playing in a capitalist market?

I believe we are building a different base of consumers and a newer age version of consumerism. For decades, larger organizations and corporations have built systems that support businesses doing things a certain way. Social enterprises can offer a new way of doing things and more innovative solutions. Ultimately, the cost of every t-shirt is the same; it’s the cost of who’s paying for it that varies. We need to think not just about the inputs but the outputs as well.

The Sustainable Development Goals

How does your work tie into the goals more broadly?

The old approach and theory of change when my brother and I started our first tree planting initiative back in high school, was very government-driven, and top down. Quickly, we realized that the consumers weren’t prepared to accept the implications of changing their spending habits and being able to seamlessly, or not so seamlessly, align their money and values.

Today, we are having a global conversation around why these things are so important but also seeing consumers driving the conversation. We are seeing a generation of consumers aligning their values and dollars with more sustainable companies. It isn’t just one segment of society that cares, it’s a global society.

Tentree helps support almost all of the SDG goals — from poverty to the environment and animals and soil strengthening our biodiversity. Improvement in each of these areas, or goals, can be directly tied to tree planting. Our goal and hope is for people to begin to understand the impact that trees are having in the long term, from building more resilient communities to supporting a healthy living environment for the youth, to a more sustainable environment for everyone. Tree planting is an incredible step towards taking action for climate and humanity.

If you had the world’s attention (or this audience) for 30 seconds and could tell them one thing about your venture what would you say?

I would say two things. I would communicate the impact that tree planting has on the people and the planet. If everyone knew, they would care a little bit more.

I would also encourage people to not feel overwhelmed and just take one step. These issues aren’t going to happen overnight, but if we all do it together over time, it can be transformative.