back arrow All articles

Why Choose Evertreen as Your Go-To Website for Planting Trees?

26 Apr 2024 in Corporate planting · Updated 8 Oct 2026

Why Choose Evertreen as Your Go-To Website for Planting Trees?

Evertreen planting site with young trees

Evertreen is a website where you plant real trees in named projects — from £1.5 each, followed online through each project's location, photos and updates, and planted and maintained by paid local teams. Plenty of sites let you "plant a tree online". The question worth asking is what you actually receive afterwards, and whether you could check what you funded if you tried.

What you get for a tree

  • A real location. The project's region and area on the map, not just a country; companies in custom partnerships can request the coordinates of their planting sites.
  • Photographic evidence. Progress photos and field video shot by the teams on site.
  • A named certificate if the tree is a gift, carrying the recipient's name and the occasion.
  • An honest carbon figure. Conservative, species-specific estimates with the method published rather than one flattering headline number.
  • Continuity. The teams who plant are paid to maintain the site afterwards, which is what decides whether a seedling becomes a tree.

Why traceability is the thing to judge on

Reforestation is unusually easy to claim and unusually hard to check. A planting number is a marketing metric; nobody publishes a survival number unless they are confident in it, and very few sites will show you where the planting actually happens. That is why Evertreen's model puts the project location first: it constrains what can be claimed, and it gives the person paying something concrete to look at.

For a company, that same property is what turns a sustainability line into evidence. Customers, auditors and increasingly regulators want to know what was actually funded — and a map is a better answer than a paragraph.

Choose your project, not just a quantity

Different sites do different work. Mangroves store exceptional amounts of carbon in their sediment and protect coastlines; tropical restoration rebuilds biodiversity fastest; degraded-land projects stabilise soil and water. You can browse live sites and species on the projects and trees pages and choose based on region or outcome, not just quantity. Site and species selection is where reforestation succeeds or fails — the reasoning is in reforestation vs afforestation.

For individuals

Plant one tree or build a forest over years. The most common personal use is gifting: a named certificate, the project's location on the map, and something that outlives the occasion — birthdays, weddings, new babies, thank-yous, memorials. It costs from £1.5, arrives digitally within minutes, and there is nothing to redeem or throw away. See trees as a gift and gift a tree for any occasion.

For companies

Three common patterns: a branded forest that grows year on year and feeds ESG reporting; gifting at scale with individually named certificates for clients or staff; and automated planting through the API or Shopify integration, triggered per order, per subscription or per new hire. Start by sizing your footprint with the free CO₂ calculator, then decide what you are reducing and what you are funding on top — the order that keeps a claim defensible. The full method is in how to calculate your business carbon footprint.

Where certified credits come in

Planting is a long-duration removal: a tree absorbs carbon over decades, not this quarter. If you need audited tonnes inside a reporting year, that is a different instrument — certified Verra and Gold Standard credits, retired on your behalf with registry documentation. Most organisations end up using both, for the reasons set out in tree planting vs carbon offsets.

What we're careful not to claim

Planting trees does not make a company carbon neutral on its own. Absorption estimates are estimates, which is why ours are conservative and published in how we estimate tree CO₂. Trees can die, which is why maintenance and monitoring matter more than headline planting numbers. And from 27 September 2026, EU rules restrict marketing a product to consumers as carbon neutral on the basis of offsetting — so we recommend contribution language, which is both safer and more accurate. Evertreen's work has been featured in 300+ media outlets, but the reason to choose a platform should be what it can show you, not who has written about it.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to plant a tree on Evertreen? From £1.5 per tree, with the same traceability whether you plant one or several thousand.

Can I see my tree? Not individually — trees are not GPS-tagged, so you follow yours through its project: the project's location on the map, progress photos and updates, plus field videos from the planting team.

Where are the trees planted? Across a range of reforestation projects in different countries; you can choose the project on the trees and projects pages.

Is a tree gift delivered instantly? Yes. Certificates are delivered digitally within minutes, which makes it workable as a last-minute gift.

Do you offer certified carbon credits too? Yes, Verra and Gold Standard credits are available on request and retired in your name with documentation.

Can a business automate planting? Yes, via the API and Shopify integration — typically a tree per order, per subscriber or per employee milestone.

What happens if a tree doesn't survive? Sites are monitored and maintained by the local teams, and the published CO₂ estimates are set conservatively to allow for mortality.

Related articles

29 Sep 2026

What Is ESG? A Simple Guide for Small Businesses

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance — a simple framework for how a company manages its impact and risks across those three areas. For a small business it is less about glossy reports and more about answering practical questions from customers, tenders, and staff: how your work affects the planet, how you treat the people around you, and how honestly you run the numbers. You do not need a sustainability department to make a start — just a clear head and a willingness to measure before you claim anything. The three pillars of ESG, in plain English Environmental. Your footprint — energy use, business travel, waste, and the CO₂ your operations produce. Social. How you treat employees, customers, suppliers, and the wider community around you. Governance. How decisions get made: ethics, data protection, fair pay, and honest record-keeping. Why the three sit together. Combined, they signal whether a business is resilient and trustworthy, not merely profitable this quarter. What it is not. ESG is not a marketing badge; treated that way it quickly becomes a liability rather than an asset. Why small businesses are suddenly being asked about ESG Even if you never publish a report, ESG questions arrive through the back door. Larger customers increasingly pass their own supply-chain rules down to smaller suppliers, public and corporate tenders now award points for environmental credentials, and employees and investors want to know what you actually stand for. Almost all of these conversations begin with a single number: your carbon footprint. You can produce a first estimate in minutes with a free CO₂ calculator, which turns a vague expectation into a figure you can put on paper and improve over time. There is a regulatory undercurrent too. Large companies in the EU now face structured sustainability reporting, and the practical effect for an SME is that their questionnaires get longer and more specific. You are rarely regulated directly; you are regulated through your customers. What you will actually be asked for Supplier questionnaires vary in length but converge on the same handful of items. Prepare these once and you can answer most of them: Your measured carbon footprint, with the reporting year and the boundary stated. Whether you have a reduction target, and what it covers. What you offset, under which standard, with evidence of retirement. Basic people policies — pay, health and safety, anti-discrimination, modern slavery statement where applicable. Governance basics — data protection, anti-bribery, who is accountable for all of the above. A single well-maintained page covering those five items answers most questionnaires and takes an afternoon rather than a consulting engagement. Practical first steps: start with the environmental The E is the most actionable pillar for a small team, so begin there. Measure your footprint, cut what you genuinely can — switch to greener suppliers, reduce travel, waste less — and then offset only the remainder rather than pretending it is already zero. Offsetting is where transparency matters most: Evertreen lets you fund real tree planting from £1.5 per tree, and for compliance-grade reporting you can request certified Verra and Gold Standard credits. The order is the point — measure, reduce, then offset — because buying credits before you have cut anything is exactly what regulators now single out. The method is in how to calculate your business carbon footprint. Don't neglect S and G — they are cheaper than you think Small businesses often assume the social and governance pillars require formal programmes. Mostly they require writing down what you already do. Fair pay practices, a clear complaints route, supplier payment terms you actually honour, a data protection policy that matches reality, and a named person accountable for decisions — that is a credible S and G position for a company of ten people. What damages a small business is not the absence of a glossy policy; it is a policy that says something the company visibly does not do. How visible tree planting supports the social side Environmental action doubles as social proof when it is visible and honest. Every tree Evertreen funds belongs to a named project whose location, photos and updates are published, so you can show customers where their impact sits instead of asking them to trust a logo — useful both for credible reporting and for engaging your own community. Some businesses turn this into branded corporate gifting, planting a tree for each client win or employee milestone. One caution worth repeating: never let planting become a substitute for reduction. Claiming to be "carbon neutral" while your emissions keep climbing is greenwashing, and it does more reputational damage than staying quiet. Note too that from 27 September 2026 the EU bans marketing a product to consumers as carbon neutral on the basis of offsetting. Keep the story modest, specific, and backed by numbers you can defend — see are carbon offsets greenwashing? Frequently asked questions Does a small business really need to worry about ESG? If you sell to larger companies, bid for tenders, or want to attract good staff and investors, yes — you will be asked. Starting small with a measured carbon footprint is usually enough to stay in the conversation. Where should a small business start with ESG? Start with the environmental pillar because it is the most measurable. Calculate your CO₂ footprint, reduce what you can, and offset the rest transparently before worrying about the social and governance pillars. Is planting trees enough to make my business sustainable? No. Tree planting offsets emissions you cannot yet avoid, but it should follow real reduction. Used honestly alongside cuts to energy and travel, it is a credible part of the plan — not a replacement for it. Do we need an ESG report? Rarely at SME scale. A one-page summary of your footprint, targets, offsetting evidence and key policies covers most of what customers actually ask for. Is ESG legally required for small companies? Usually not directly. The requirements land on large companies, and reach smaller suppliers through procurement questionnaires and contract terms. How much does getting started cost? The measurement can be free with a calculator and a few hours of time. The meaningful spend is in the reductions themselves and, optionally, in offsetting the residual. What is the most common mistake? Claiming more than you can evidence. A modest, documented position is worth far more in a tender than an ambitious one that falls apart under a follow-up question. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ {"@type": "Question", "name": "Does a small business really need to worry about ESG?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "If you sell to larger companies, bid for tenders or want to attract good staff and investors, yes. Starting with a measured carbon footprint is usually enough to stay in the conversation."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Where should a small business start with ESG?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Start with the environmental pillar because it is the most measurable. Calculate your CO2 footprint, reduce what you can, and offset the rest transparently."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Is planting trees enough to make my business sustainable?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "No. Tree planting offsets emissions you cannot yet avoid but should follow real reduction. Used honestly alongside cuts to energy and travel it is a credible part of the plan."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Do small businesses need an ESG report?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Rarely at SME scale. A one-page summary of your footprint, targets, offsetting evidence and key policies covers most of what customers ask for."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Is ESG legally required for small companies?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Usually not directly. Requirements land on large companies and reach smaller suppliers through procurement questionnaires and contract terms."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "How much does starting with ESG cost?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Measurement can be free with a calculator and a few hours of time. The meaningful spend is in the reductions themselves and optionally in offsetting the residual."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "What is the most common ESG mistake for small businesses?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Claiming more than you can evidence. A modest documented position is worth far more in a tender than an ambitious one that collapses under a follow-up question."}} ] }

arrow right
14 Sep 2026

Eco-Friendly Employee Gifts That Actually Mean Something

The best eco-friendly employee gift is one that creates zero waste, feels genuinely personal, and still supports the sustainability goals your company already reports on – and a real, named tree does all three at once. Where branded mugs, tote bags, and gift cards are quickly forgotten or thrown away, a planted tree gives each colleague something lasting with their name attached, while turning a routine thank-you into a small but measurable environmental contribution. For an internal audience, that combination of low cost, no logistics, and real meaning is difficult for any physical gift to match – and it keeps working long after the moment has passed. Why a planted tree makes a better staff gift No clutter. There is nothing to wrap, ship home, or eventually throw out – the gift lives in the ground, not on a desk. Personal by default. Each employee receives a certificate in their own name, so a company-wide gesture still feels individual rather than a mass send. Scales to any headcount. Gifting five people or five thousand takes the same effort, with a cost from £1.5 per tree. On-brand for ESG. If sustainability is part of how you present the company, the gift reinforces that message instead of contradicting it. Measurable. Every tree belongs to a real, located project and has an estimated CO₂ contribution you can fold into your reporting. Inclusive. A tree carries no size, taste, or dietary constraints, so the same gift genuinely suits everyone on the team. How it compares with the usual options Branded merchandise. Cheap per unit, but a large share is discarded, and staff can read logo-covered items as advertising rather than thanks. Gift cards. Genuinely useful and genuinely impersonal — and a meaningful proportion go unredeemed. Hampers and alcohol. Well received by some, awkward for others, and a compliance headache in regulated industries. Charity donation in their name. Closest in spirit, but usually invisible — there is nothing to look at afterwards. A tree in a named project, with its location, photos and updates, is the version you can actually see. The honest caveat: for some people, nothing replaces a physical object. For a small group of key recipients, pairing a certificate with something tangible covers both instincts. Moments worth marking with a tree A tree suits the moments that deserve more than a generic reward. Use it as a welcome gift during onboarding, so a new hire's first day already says something about the company's values; to mark work anniversaries, promotions, and project milestones; as an end-of-year holiday thank-you to the whole team; or as a wellbeing and all-hands recognition reward. Because you can gift a single tree or thousands at once, the same gesture works for one new starter on their first morning and for an entire company at the close of the year – without redesigning the process, managing stock, or watching the budget balloon each time headcount grows. Getting the details right Give more than one tree. Five to ten per person reads as a real gesture; a single symbolic tree per head can feel like a rounding error. Name every certificate. The difference between "we planted 500 trees" and 500 named certificates is the difference between a CSR line and a gift. Send it from a person, not the company. A line from a manager beats a templated all-staff email every time. Avoid the December pile-up if you want it noticed — a mid-year thank-you lands far better. Show the forest at the all-hands. A map of the company forest growing year on year does more for engagement than the original email did. How it works across a whole team Behind each gift is a real tree in a named project – with the project's location, photos and updates, not a vague pledge – and every employee receives their own personalised gift certificate, all collected into a single company forest you can show off at your next all-hands or on a careers page. For larger programmes, our API and Shopify integration let you trigger a tree automatically the moment someone is onboarded or reaches an anniversary, so the admin work stays close to zero as you scale, and our corporate gifting case studies show how other teams have run exactly this. Because the projects and their locations are documented, the impact can feed ESG and engagement reporting honestly – no rounded-up numbers or offset math, just the trees that were actually planted in your team's name. One framing note for the reporting side: gifted trees are a contribution, not a carbon claim. Keep them separate from any neutrality statement — the distinction is explained in tree planting vs carbon offsets. The wider corporate approach is in corporate tree gifts for clients and employees. Frequently asked questions How much does it cost to gift a tree to employees? Trees start from £1.5 each, and the price per tree stays the same whether you gift a handful or several thousand. There are no separate per-recipient fees on top, so a 200-person team simply costs 200 trees and the total scales predictably with your headcount. What does each employee actually receive? Each person gets a personalised certificate in their name, linked to the project where their tree is planted, with its location, photos and updates, rather than a generic voucher. They can follow that certificate to see the project's area on the map. Can we gift trees to a large team at once? Yes. Bulk gifting is built for any headcount, and you can automate it through the API or Shopify so trees are sent at onboarding or on each work anniversary, with every tree gathered into one company forest. How many trees should we give per employee? More than one. Five to ten per person reads as a genuine gesture, and the cost difference at that scale is small compared with most physical gifts. Do employees actually like receiving trees? Response improves sharply when the certificate is named, the message is personal and the location is included. A generic company-wide announcement gets a much cooler reception. Can we use this for remote and international teams? Yes — that is one of its main advantages. There is no shipping, customs or address problem, so everyone receives the same gift on the same day. Can gifted trees count towards our carbon reporting? Treat them as a contribution rather than an offset claim. For audited tonnes, use certified credits alongside the gifting programme. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ {"@type": "Question", "name": "How much does it cost to gift a tree to employees?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Trees start from 1.5 pounds each and the price per tree stays the same whether you gift a handful or several thousand, with no separate per-recipient fees."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "What does each employee actually receive?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "A personalised certificate in their name linked to the project where their tree is planted, with its location, photos and updates, rather than a generic voucher."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Can we gift trees to a large team at once?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Bulk gifting works at any headcount and can be automated through the API or Shopify at onboarding or on work anniversaries, with every tree gathered into one company forest."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "How many trees should we give per employee?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "More than one. Five to ten per person reads as a genuine gesture and the cost difference is small compared with most physical gifts."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Do employees actually like receiving tree gifts?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Response improves sharply when the certificate is named, the message is personal and the location is included. Generic company-wide announcements get a cooler reception."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Do tree gifts work for remote and international teams?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, and it is one of the main advantages. There is no shipping, customs or address problem, so everyone receives the same gift on the same day."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Can gifted trees count towards our carbon reporting?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Treat them as a contribution rather than an offset claim. For audited tonnes, use certified credits alongside the gifting programme."}} ] }

arrow right
5 Sep 2026

What Is the Carbon Footprint of a Website?

A typical web page emits roughly 0.5–5 g CO₂ per view, so a website's carbon footprint is simply that per-view figure multiplied by your traffic — a site serving a million page views a year lands at ≈ 0.5–5 tonnes of CO₂. The exact number swings with page weight, how and where the site is hosted, and the devices your visitors use, so treat any single result as an order-of-magnitude estimate rather than a precise measurement. Where a website's emissions come from Data centres. The servers that store and deliver your pages draw electricity around the clock, plus extra energy to keep the hardware cool. Network transfer. Every image, script, font and video crosses routers, cables and mobile networks that all burn power in transit. User devices. Phones, tablets and laptops spend their own energy downloading, rendering and displaying each page you send them. Traffic volume. A tiny per-view figure multiplied by millions of visits is what quietly turns grams into tonnes over a year. How to estimate your site's footprint To size your own footprint, multiply a realistic per-view figure by your annual page views — but first work out where your pages sit in that 0.5–5 g band. The biggest driver is page weight: heavy hero images, autoplaying video and uncached assets can push a single page well past 5 g, while a lean, well-cached page stays under 0.5 g. Hosting matters almost as much, since a server on a renewable-powered grid emits far less than a "dirty-grid" data centre running on fossil fuels. Rather than guess, drop your numbers into a free tool such as Evertreen's CO₂ calculator to get a defensible annual estimate before you change anything. A worked example Take a mid-sized business site with 500,000 page views a year: At a lean 0.5 g per view, that is about 0.25 tonnes a year — roughly a short-haul return flight. At a heavy 4 g per view, it is about 2 tonnes — roughly a long-haul return flight per year, every year. The instructive part is the ratio: the same traffic produces an eightfold difference purely from how the pages were built. Very few carbon reduction levers in any business are that cheap to pull. What actually drives page weight In practice the culprits are consistent, and they are rarely the things developers worry about: Video. An autoplaying background video can outweigh the entire rest of the page by an order of magnitude. It is almost always the single biggest win. Uncompressed images. Serving a 3000px hero image to a phone is the most common waste on the web. Modern formats and correct sizing usually cut image weight by 60–80%. Third-party scripts. Tag managers, chat widgets, A/B tools and analytics stack up quietly, and each one is downloaded and executed on every device. Web fonts. Four weights of two families is a surprisingly heavy default. Two weights is usually plenty. No caching. Returning visitors re-downloading assets they already have is pure waste. A note on "green hosting" claims Most green-hosting claims rest on renewable energy certificates rather than a physically different power supply — the provider buys certificates matching its consumption. That is a legitimate market-based accounting method, and it is genuinely better than nothing, but it is worth understanding for what it is. Stronger signals are on-site generation, long-term power purchase agreements and published carbon intensity per region. The mechanism is explained in RECs vs carbon offsets. Either way, reducing what you send beats accounting for what you sent. How to cut a website's carbon footprint Once you know the rough figure, the fastest wins come from shrinking what you send. Compress and lazy-load images, strip out unused scripts and fonts, minify your code and cache aggressively so returning visitors re-download as little as possible. Choosing a host that runs on renewable energy cuts the data-centre share at a stroke, and a good CDN shortens the distance your data has to travel. In practice these steps can halve a page's footprint while also making it load faster, which tends to lift conversions and search rankings at the same time — a rare case where the greener option is also the more profitable one. Offset the remainder with traceable trees You will rarely reach zero on efficiency alone, so the honest final step is to offset the emissions you cannot yet design out. Evertreen lets you fund real reforestation with traceable trees from £1.5 each, and you can plant trees as a one-off or on a recurring basis, with each project's location shown on a map so you can show visitors where their impact lands. For businesses, our API and Shopify integration build offsetting straight into a site or checkout, so you can neutralise emissions automatically per order or per visit rather than by hand. When you need audit-ready proof for ESG or customer reporting, you can also request certified Verra & Gold Standard carbon credits on top. Keep the claim proportionate: a website's footprint is usually a small line in a company's total, so treat it as a well-executed detail rather than the centrepiece of your climate story. The full inventory is in how to calculate your business carbon footprint. Frequently asked questions How much CO₂ does a website produce? A single page view is usually 0.5–5 g CO₂, so a site serving a million page views a year sits at roughly 0.5–5 tonnes of CO₂. Page weight and the cleanliness of your hosting decide where in that range you land. How can I reduce my website's carbon footprint? Shrink page weight, compress and lazy-load images, cut unused code, cache assets and move to a host powered by renewable energy. These steps lower emissions and load times together, and you can offset whatever remains. Can planting trees offset a website's emissions? Yes. After you have estimated your annual footprint and reduced what you can, funding traceable trees or certified carbon credits lets you balance the CO₂ you cannot yet remove. What is the single biggest change I can make? Remove or replace autoplaying video, then right-size images. Together they account for most of the weight on a typical marketing site. Does dark mode reduce emissions? Marginally, and only on OLED screens. It is a nice touch, not a strategy — page weight matters far more. Is a static site greener than a dynamic one? Usually, because it caches better and does less work per request. The difference is smaller than the difference between a light page and a heavy one. Should we advertise our site as carbon neutral? Be careful. Report what you measured and what you funded as separate numbers, and note that EU rules restrict offset-based neutrality claims made to consumers from September 2026. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ {"@type": "Question", "name": "How much CO2 does a website produce?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "A single page view is usually 0.5 to 5 g CO2, so a site serving a million page views a year sits at roughly 0.5 to 5 tonnes. Page weight and hosting decide where in that range you land."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "How can I reduce my website's carbon footprint?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Shrink page weight, compress and lazy-load images, cut unused code, cache assets and move to a host powered by renewable energy. These steps lower emissions and load times together."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Can planting trees offset a website's emissions?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. After estimating your annual footprint and reducing what you can, funding traceable trees or certified carbon credits balances the CO2 you cannot yet remove."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "What is the single biggest change to reduce website emissions?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Remove or replace autoplaying video, then right-size images. Together they account for most of the weight on a typical marketing site."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Does dark mode reduce a website's emissions?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Marginally, and only on OLED screens. It is a nice touch rather than a strategy, since page weight matters far more."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Is a static website greener than a dynamic one?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Usually, because it caches better and does less work per request, though the difference is smaller than that between a light page and a heavy one."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "Should we advertise our website as carbon neutral?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Report what you measured and what you funded as separate numbers. EU rules restrict offset-based neutrality claims made to consumers from September 2026."}} ] }

arrow right
products View cart

Plant & offset from £ 1

Let’s find the best tree planting or Verra CO₂ offset solution for your needs.

I agree to be contacted by email and SMS from Evertreen based on my provided details