The Q2 2022 Philippines Impact Report
Our motto is to achieve the greatest possible impact with the least possible effort. Together with over 160 companies, we bring good deeds into everyday life and thus achieve great things.
Click A Tree was not created to offset CO2, but to support life by restoring natural habitats for plants and animals while providing economic opportunities for all involved.
You can read exactly what this means in our latest report from our project in the Philippines.
Everything you need to know about our project in the Philippines: the who, how, what
Where exactly do we plant? Which tree species are planted to promote biodiversity? Who exactly plants? And what other side project are we supporting? Here are the hard facts.
The country
The Philippines is a Southeast Asian country in the Western Pacific and comprises more than 7,000 islands. They rank 116th in the UN Human Development Index (Germany: 9th; UN Report 2021/2022).
The place
San Isidro, Davao Oriental, Mindanao; coordinates: 6°53’17.0″ N, 126°09’52.1″ E.
And here zoomed out again
The mission
Our mission is to create long-term full-time jobs and sustainable food security for local farmers while removing plastic waste from the ocean.
Procedure
Our tree planting in the Philippines aims to create a natural forest that has the best chance of survival. To this end, we plant trees that are suitable for the humid, green and coastal areas – mangrove trees.
You can read why we chose mangroves here: Mangrove forests – 7 vital functions + 4 unique facts.
Workers in our reforestation project
As in our other projects, we only work here with full-time employees, both for planting and caring for the trees. The same applies to the collection of plastic waste.
Planting time
Theoretically all year round, but a break is taken in the summer months as it is too hot for planting.
Plant species in our reforestation project
13 mangrove species were planted in Q3 2022.
Special feature of the project
In addition to the sustainable creation of full-time jobs, 1 kg of plastic is removed from the ocean for every tree planted in the Philippines.
We have compiled more in-depth details about our reforestation project in the Philippines for you here: Planting trees in the Philippines – Why we plant trees for the oceans.
Would you like to be part of this mission? Then sign up for your own Universal Impact account today and track your entire impact. In less than 5 minutes, you can already make an impact and share it with your customers, employees and followers.
Previous project successes of Click A Tree
Click A Tree has been planting trees in the Philippines since 2019. The project has been open for customer support since mid-2020. Thanks to the great support of numerous partners, the following has already been achieved:
Important: “Newly created working hours” only includes all additional working hours created in this quarter. Even with small numbers (e.g. 0 in Q3 2020), all existing jobs will be retained. At such times, for example, the nursery is expanded, the field prepared, planned, etc.
A very, very big thank you goes to all our cooperation partners who support us so diligently in our mission to reforest the planet and create self-sufficient ecosystems.
None of this would be possible without you. Therefore: Thank you very, very much! We look forward to continuing to work with you in the years and decades to come to make our planet a better place for all its inhabitants.
Would you like to help us increase these numbers and also make a big difference for the local people? Then create a Universal Impact account and let’s get started.
Philippines Update Q2 2022
In the fight against plastic
Since summer 2021, we have been removing 1 kg of plastic waste from the sea for every mangrove tree planted. A unique project that enables all our supporters to achieve the greatest possible positive impact for our planet with very little effort.
As state pensions here are very low, if payments are made at all, we mainly work with older people in our plastics project. This work is less physically demanding than planting trees and thus helps them to secure a (further) income.
The plastic is collected on the beach, in shallow water and between the mangroves and then stowed in these large bags before being transported to the next station. As the project is very popular and we collect several hundred kilograms of plastic every month, we even had to buy 100 more bags last month.
We have already been able to remove 15,378 kg of plastic from the sea. That’s 15 tons less waste for marine life off the Philippine coast. A strong start that would not have been possible without so many hard-working supporters – thank you at this point.
And to prevent plastic waste from simply ending up in the sea again, we are currently working on an exciting option for reuse. More about this in a moment.
Planting out the seedlings in June
On June 24, our colleagues in the Philippines made their way from the tree nursery to the beach to plant 3,000 mangrove seedlings.
Anie Rose Planco (top picture) and Mercedita Guiabo (bottom picture) are responsible for organizing the tree nurseries.
With eagle eyes, they make sure that the right mangrove species are brought to the beach in the right quantities so that a wonderful mangrove forest is created.
They are then transported to the beach in San Isidro in wooden wheelbarrows.
Our team then plants the seedlings in the sand in almost straight lines.
In a short time and with little bureaucracy, you can make a real difference on the planet. With your own Universal Impact account, you can track and share your impact.
The weather
Due to its geographical location, the weather in the south of the Philippines is relatively stable. There is neither winter nor summer, but times with more and less storms and the resulting tidal waves.
It is currently very hot during the day, often rainy in the late afternoon and temperatures of 22 degrees Celsius are reached at night.
There were several storms and an earthquake (5.2 on the scale, Epi Center in Governor Generoso), but fortunately the people, tree nurseries and mangroves survived unscathed.
New projects in the pipeline
Thanks to the extremely positive development of the reforestation project in the Philippines, we are simultaneously developing further projects to ensure smooth further development.
All new projects are initially developed independently by Click A Tree – our partners can get involved as soon as the projects are satisfactorily developed.
Chairs made from plastic waste
For every mangrove planted, 1 kg of plastic is removed from the ocean. As the collected plastic should not simply be dumped in landfill, we have come up with an exciting recycling solution:
school chairs.
This is what the first chairs made from plastic waste look like. This gives thousands of children a stable chair at school – even with a built-in desk pad.
A total of 30 kg of plastic is needed to produce one chair. Of course, the chair won’t weigh 30 kg – but so much plastic has to be collected.
Unfortunately, not all plastic can be recycled, so we are constantly working on new methods.
Next Steps
As we are still in the early stages of this project, we will continue to refine the process over the next few months until we can fully integrate it into our project. The next task will be to see how the costs of chair production can be covered.
If anyone has any ideas on how we can cover the costs incurred, please send us an e-mail with ideas and/or any contacts to chris@clickatree.com.
Of course, this can be brilliantly marketed as a CSR measure for companies – and makes a very valuable contribution to improving access to education in the Philippines.
You want to do something good, preferably with the greatest possible impact, but don’t know what or how?
Whether you as a company want to plant trees for a product, as an employee gift or as a customer gift: if you plant trees with us, you will achieve a mega impact.
Because trees are not just trees.
You can also track your impact and share it with others on our new Impact Platform.
There you can see how many hours of work you have created, how much area you have reforested and, depending on which project you choose, you either remove plastic from the ocean or support an entrepreneurial school.
A few clicks make a big difference for the planet and many people.
Register for our Impact Platform free of charge. We’ll even give you the first tree as a gift. It takes you less than 5 minutes, is less bureaucratic, but achieves the greatest impact.