TREEGENERATION LOCAL

We are in discussion with a number of wildlife organisations along the west coast of Wales. Because this is a brand new initiative we have very modest fundraising aspirations at the moment. In the initial role out, we are unlikely to try and raise more than £1-200 while we test the system. We hope to announce our first beneficiary project before Christmas.

Your business will be promoted in a variety of ways through the TREEGENERATION rollout:

• we will promote all participating businesses on our own website, and through our own rapidly growing social networks, and mailing list;
• the beneficiary organisations who we are fundraising for will promote the project to their own networks, through their websites, and mailing lists;
• your business offers on the website have social share buttons, and customers are encouraged to use these when they are shopping, and at the end of checkout, in order to promote business offers, and the project in general, amongst their own networks;
• we will rally local authorities, and business support organisations, to help promote the initiative;
• we will work with local press and media, to promote the project through newspapers, radio, TV, etc;
• the general population will be further engaged through video campaigning and targetted marketing on the most popular social media channels.

Finally, we would expect you to reach out to your own customers to promote your business offers through whatever means you have available.

There is no fee for your business to sign up to the TREEGENERATION initiative. We will take a percentage of the funds raised through the programme in order to cover the costs of running the project, and promoting your business offers.

It is up to you, commit to whatever value you feel comfortable with. The minimum amount that you can commit to is £25, but we recommend that you do more than this in order to make an impact. If the rollout is not working out for your business, you can withdraw any offers you have made before fulfilling your commitment. On the other hand if the rollout benefits your business, you can "top up" your commitment and keep on going with it.

TREEGENERATION will set fundraising targets with the beneficiary organisations. The rollout will continue until the funds have been generated. If the rollout is a success, we may choose to do additional rounds in the future, to raise funds for more woodland.

When a customer buys your business offers from our site, the money that they pay is forwarded by TREEGENERATION to the beneficiary tree planting project, and at this point it is effectively a donation. The mobile app is required to close the circle, so when the customer arrives at your checkout with their TREEGENERATION e-voucher, and you scan it with a mobile device using the app, this automatically informs TREEGENERATION that the voucher has been redeemed. At this point the cash that was paid is no longer a donation from the customer, and the funds that have been raised are accredited to your business instead. Funds that you have generated in this way will be tracked and displayed on our website. In the future we plan to provide more integrated point of sale solutions, but during the pilot phase of the project we are limited to providing the mobile app to complete the transaction.

We are hoping to get as many businesses in the area involved as possible, and you do not need to be located in a town centre. However, by getting a significant number of town centre businesses involved, we hope to make a splash, and to give these places a much needed boost. Town centres are under pressure from a variety of courses, including supermarkets, and other out of town retail, and more recently the rise of internet shopping. The UK economy has never really recovered from the 2008 banking crises, plus on top of that we have the impact of Covid and possibly Brexit, although the later is hard to quantify since it was eclipsed by the pandemic. TREEGENERATION LOCAL does not aim to make people buy more, but it does wish to change shopping habits, and get people away from Ebay and Amazon, and back onto the high street.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), woodlands provide around £1,000 / hectare / year of value to the local economy. This is provided mostly in the form of "ecosystem services", including carbon sequestration (tackling climate change), air pollution removal, flood mitigation, temperature regulation, noise reduction, recreation, and education. Many of these services have a positive impact on our health and well-being, and their value on the economy can be measured in terms like reduced days off work, and cost to the NHS. Carbon sequestration is one of the most important ecosystem services that a woodland provides. In actual fact the figure of £1,000 / ha / yr reported by the ONS is probably too low, since the price of carbon has tripled since their report was written in 2020. Another important aspect of woodland is that it provides habitat for wildlife. Although the provision of natural habitat is obviously very important, this "service" is not included in the ONS value, since there is currently no clear way to measure the impact within the economy.

The UK has a target to plant in excess of 2 billion trees by 2050, in order to achieve carbon neutrality, and Wales has an important role to play in this. Since most of Wales is farmland, our priority is to support farmers to diversify and plant trees and small woodlands. By planting the right trees in the right places, it is possible to increase the overall prosperity of farms, through improving the health and well-being of stock, and the land that sustains them. Also by working on a bigger scale with clusters of farmers, we can create joined-up woodlands, providing habitat corridors, or other ecological services such as watershed improvements, or flood alleviation.