Thinking about what it means to be a sustainable, progressive technology company helped us realize we needed to rethink just about everything, including why you care, why you'd want to be part of our community, and how we can keep challenging ourselves to give back and make the world better for everyone.
That led us to a simple conclusion:
We should plant trees - lots of trees. Let's blanket the Earth with progress.
How we're putting that into action is our "One Action, One Tree" campaign. Every time you or another member of our community completes an action in Brightest via the "completed this" button, we plant one tree through a local reforestation partner or project.
This button 👉 = 1 🌳
Sign up, take action, then mark it complete - that's one more tree to make our air fresher and our earth better. Once you've planted your first tree with us, your tree count and CO2 impact calculation will be visible on your profile page.
Better yet, if you send us a photo of you completing it to [email protected] or tag @brightest, we'll make it two 🌳🌳. For community members, we'll publish reports and transparently share results with you so you can see not just how much CO2 you offset, but also see your contributions to a better, more sustainable planet.
Note: You do need to actually complete the action. While we're piloting this with a trust system and taking your word for what you complete, we'll be making updates down the road to make this system as honest and efficient as possible. Please don't just go around the app or website marking a bunch of things complete - we'll notice and that isn't going to count.
And if you *really* can't make time to volunteer on Brightest, you can also plant trees as a charitable gift through The Brightest Foundation here: $1 plants one tree.
We're an official tree planting partner of the National Forest Foundation
Other Helpful Info
Since we know you're the ambitious, intellectually curious type who might have questions, here's some more background info on the campaign and how the program works:
Why Trees?
Simply put, trees are amazing. They're the most efficient natural CO2 absorbers on the planet, help limit climate change, restart water cycles, keep deserts from spreading, and also provide vital natural resources to local communities. According to Tufts, NC State, and the University of New Mexico, one adult tree absorbs up to 40 pounds of CO2 per year.
Where Do You Plant?
We target threatened forest ecosystems and high-impact economic development, so our first trees are planted in California (fire relief), Peru ('War on Drugs' relief), and Tanzania (economic development). Since then, we've broaden our tree planting work across the United States and internationally in five other countries. At every step, we only work with partners with a proven track record of tree planting who provide thorough impact documentation of their work. Learn more about our current tree planting work here.
What Else?
Our goal is to make "One Action, One Tree" as transparent and action-oriented as possible, so pls feel free to ask us follow-up questions and follow along as we work through the best ways to measure and quantify our collective impact. With your help, we can slow climate change, provide much-needed economic development to disadvantaged communities, and feel a little better knowing we actively made a difference.
No matter what, we'll continue to work on, talk about, and problem-solve for mitigating climate change for as long (and as aggressively) as we can, and we're greatful for your support. Be on the lookout for more updates, reporting, and transparency soon as we scale up this campaign and start to gather more impact data.
Our first trees are planted in the blue zone (left) and a second nearby plot to benefit the Alto Huayabamba reforestation project in San Martin, Peru. Alto Huayabamba is a modern agroforestry initiative working to reduce global climate change and help locals sustainably cultivate cocoa (for making chocolate) after periods of heavy deforestation in the 1980s and 1990s.
You can also watch some of our tree planting work in Tanzania, dedicated to supporting regional economic development, local green jobs and agribusiness, and fighting climate change.
Want to join us in our fight against climate change? Get in touch, plant a tree, or take your next steps here: