FAQ
Who are we?
We are really excited that you would like to know more about us. Please click here to learn more about who we are.
How do I contact you?
To contact us, please click here.
Why isn't Neutral Footprint a non-profit organisation?
We are a certified, mission-driven, environmental enterprise created to help end the world’s deforestation crisis.
We are not a non-profit organisation, because we want to keep our focus on our mission and not be entangled in the bureaucracy of running a non-profit organisation. At the moment, all our tree planting and awareness raising efforts are financed solely by your purchases of our products. All the funds collected are used exclusively to support tree planting projects, finance awareness content on social media and to enable further development of the project. Other than the minimum wage that assures us a decent life and allows us to protect nature, absolutely no personal gain will be made with the project.
In our situation, there are many benefits to acting as an environmental enterprise rather than a charity. The main reason is the possibility to quickly accelerate the project. For example, as a non-profit concern, we would often rely on funding that is intended for defined periods of time or for specific projects. We are funded exclusively by our own business results and therefore any decision regarding where we deploy our resources is our own. If we REALLY want to succeed at what we want to achieve, we need unlimited scalability. It is also much harder to raise investment capital as a non-profit model. With investment, however, we could potentially make an even greater impact in the future. In short, we firmly believe that the freedom of running the project as an environmental enterprise will help us make a greater environmental impact than we would have otherwise done.
In the future, we intend to expend this project world-wide, and turn our focus to local deforestation problems too. We are not perfect, but we try to make what we do even more sustainable every single day by investing in environmentally friendly packaging, finding new sustainable ways of creating our products and improving our everyday working practices.
Yes, we intend to make a profit one day, since we want to create jobs with decent wages. We think it’s fair and reasonable for young people to find ways of creating jobs that sustain and have a positive impact on nature. Look around yourself, and count up how many people we know have got rich by destroying our planet? That seems unfair to us – getting a poor living out of trying to make a change. It is unacceptable to us that “doing good” also equals “being poor” and “doing it for free”. We firmly believe that people who are changing the world for the better deserve to be paid fairly and proportionately according to the positive impact that they bring to nature.
We believe enterprise can be the source of good and we hope to inspire others to rethink their models to strive for creative solutions that would leave the world a better place for our children.
How can I trust you?
That’s a question that we both love and hate at the same time. Why should this be?
Our project has purely good intentions. It’s frustrating to see that people miss out on awesome projects because they don’t believe in the integrity of the people behind them. We are just as sick of corrupt charities as you are!
We are not a huge charity organisation, just a group of young environmental enthusiasts trying to make the world a better place.
We strive only for the highest sustainability and ethical standards. This is why we co-operate with only the best and most trustworthy organisations around the world, as partners, to plant trees and protect animals.
We are a vetted partner of two of the world’s leading reforestation organisation in the world: Eden Reforestation Projects and One Tree Planted.
You can find us listed on Eden Reforestation Project’s website as one of their partners by clicking here and on the One Tree Planted page, here.
We also co-operate with other top-rated organisations, mainly for habitat and animal preservation purposes. You can check out all our projects and partners here.
We also post our certificates for every financial commitment that we make. You can check the certificates that verify our co-operation with the organisations mentioned above here.
We absolutely love what we do together!
We look to achieve the highest ethical standards. The vast majority of the bracelets are made by us in Slovenia, and our products are also compliant with the most recognisable ethical & ecological certificates.
Who are the non-profit organisations that you support?
We are well aware that it is impossible to rely on just one person, company or organisation to end the deforestation crisis.
This is why we cooperate with the world’s leading and most trustworthy tree planting and animal preservation organisations.
To date, we are proud to say that in the first year (March 2019 – March 2020) we donated more than € 20,000 to our non-profit partners, which is exactly 72% of our surplus. This is the full list of our non-profit partners: click here.
Does the total number of trees you have financed reflect the number of products you have sold?
We sometimes run special offers to encourage more people to join our project, and more often than not we finance more trees than the original number of trees planted per product. For example, one of the most successful campaigns we run is our Green Friday (instead of Black Friday), where we double the trees planted for every product sold instead of reducing prices.
We also finance additional tree planting to compensate for the CO2 emissions that come with running our enterprise. This includes compensating for all the parcels we send, electricity we use, our transport emissions, etc.
How does the tree planting work?
For every product you purchase, we finance tree planting projects around the world. For tree planting, we cooperate with the world’s leading reforestation organisations: Eden Reforestation Projects and One Tree Planted. Together we plant trees in the most badly affected areas of the world.
Beside tree planting, we also finance awareness content on social media and habitat or animal preservation around the world. To check all our partners and projects, click here.
Which trees do you plant and where are they planted?
At the moment, we are actively working on the following planting projects:
Madagascar
Indonesia
Haiti
Kenya
Australia
Amazon Rainforest
Wouldn't it be better to keep the old trees alive instead of planting new ones?
We think that keeping trees alive is just as important as planting new ones.
This is why we created a wholesome cycle that we call “Plant & Prevent”.
Besides financing tree planting projects, we finance awareness and educational content on social media to show people what we can do to create a minimal impact on deforestation in our everyday lives. In the long-run, we want to change how people think and act. With financing tree planting projects, we also finance the protection of newly planted trees.
If you are worried that the newly planted trees will be cut down in the near future, then you should know that all the planting projects that we finance are protected.
Check this video to see how the trees are protected: click here.
Besides all this, we also finance habitat preservation projects.
To check out our projects, click here.
The species of tree planted, depends on the location of the project. To check out the tree species and partners for all our planting or preservation projects, click here.
How much money is used to fund tree planting projects and animal saving projects?
To date, we are proud to say that in the first year (March 2019 – March 2020) we donated more than €20,000 to our non-profit partners, which is exactly 72% of our surplus. You can find a full list of our non-profit partners here: click here.
The rest of the surplus went to finance awareness content on social media and for project development.
In the future, we intend to expand this project world-wide, and turn our attention to local deforestation problems as well. We are not perfect, but we try to make our practices even more sustainable every single day by investing in environmentally friendly packaging, finding new sustainable ways of creating our products and improving our everyday practices.