#005 – Plantyflix

Here comes the next solution! 

We are on a mission to find 100 Sustainable Solutions to present the interesting and innovative people, projects and companies that are working towards sustainability to you. A special interest of our 100 Sustainable Solutions is to give you an opportunity to get involved with every one of the solutions.

In our initial six survey questions, we ask about purpose, impact, and challenges. We want to know where the organizations get their optimism from and how anyone can get involved, on board and in touch.

We are very happy to have Plantyflix on board as our first organization and here are their answers.

Why does your organisation exist?

If TLDL is your thing, then — we exist to plant trees while you chill.

Born out of the covid-era, Plantyflix was created (by two friends Fabrice + Liam) to help people plant trees from their couch to offset a part or all of their digital carbon footprint — specifically from streaming. The problem is that with covid came a huge increase in Netflix usage and other kinds of video streaming platforms, such as Disney+, Youtube and even Zoom are just to name a few. You may not know it. But just like driving, chilling at home binging on your favourite TV shows or video calling friends also has an impact on the environment.

The problem is that streaming consumes energy. And with energy comes emissions (from servers, fans for cooling, internet infrastructure that allows you to surf the web and power to charge your devices). And with emissions of course comes harmful chemicals. Needless to say, bad for us and the environment. In fact, we calculated that all Netflix users combined emit as much CO2 in 1 second as driving a car 3.8x around the world. Hey, but don’t worry, we’re here to help. We plant trees based on the amount of [insert the streaming service you pay to each month here] you watch to help you reduce your footprint.

As the world’s attention shifted to solving a health crisis, we launched Plantyflix to help remind us all that we still face an even greater existentially threatening one called climate change. And to help people to take action like planting trees from their couch.

With great power to chill, comes great responsibility to plant trees (with Plantyflix, of course).

What impact do you have?

To date, we’ve already planted more than 16,000+ trees together with all of the Plantyflix community and the help of our partner Eden Reforestation Projects. It’s only been 4 months since we launched. So we’re super happy and excited how things have gone so far! This estimates to about ~2.5k tonnes of CO2 offset over the course of the trees’ life, assuming a conservative survival rate and smaller sized trees. Please note, that planting trees doesn’t directly equal a “certified” offset and so the above is very much an estimate.

What are your main challenges? (Now and in the foreseeable future.)

As running the internet becomes more energy efficient with time and improvements to technology we’ll need to adapt our business to fit this and broaden how we offset our users. However, with more trees being cut down each minute than are being replaced, planting trees is almost always a positive and a necessary thing for the world right now. Plant tree n’ chill people!

What gives you reason for optimism for the future?

Having been around the the environmental tech industry in Australia and Germany for the past 5+ years or so, it’s amazing to see the ever increasing number of companies working on different problems related to helping tackle anthropogenic climate change. We need lots of people working on solving different, specific problems. As good as trees are, planting trees alone won’t solve this mess. We need behavioural and structural change throughout society, alternative sustainable products and better ways of living and manufacturing. These are the things we see different people working on. And this is why we’re positive about the future.

We have curious readers, eager to get active. How can they get involved with your project?

1. If you do either of these things → watch Netflix, Youtube, take Zoom calls, [name a video streaming service] or are reading this article. Then head over to Plantyflix.com to start planting trees for as little as $1/month for a bunch of trees.
2. Or if you’d like to help spread the word with us, you can join our referral program and earn 20% lifetime commission on every signup you bring + we’ll plant 10x extra trees for your friends to get them started. ?
3. Not quite ready to sign up? For every share or retweet we’ll plant a tree for you (go to either → Facebook post or Twitter post).
4. If you have experience in growing startups and think you’re a killer marketer and have a design edge, we’d like to hear from you.
5. Just go and plant a tree yourself.

How can they get in touch?

Best place to start, our website → www.plantyflix.com

You’re also always welcome to follow and message us:
email: hello@plantyflix.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plantyflix/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plantyflix
Twitter: https://twitter.com/plantyflix