UAE’s The Storey Group launches initiative to plant one billion trees by 2026

The UAE’s The Storey Group, TSG, has launched an initiative to encourage the residents and corporates to come together to help plant one billion trees globally by 2026 in a transformational project designed to help offset the country’s carbon emissions. After almost two years of intense research and development, TSG has teamed up with EcoMatcher, a certified social enterprise and the world’s first blockchain-enabled digital tree-planting platform, to launch the One Billion Trees Initiative, OBTI, which is aimed at capturing 250 billion kgs of carbon within a decade of planting the full tree complement.

OBTI enables people to buy or gift trees, with each tree delivering an annual carbon sequestration of 25 kgs, or plant and name a forest of 1,000 trees or more. Trees will be planted around the world with locations in nine countries, Guatemala, Peru, Uganda, the UAE, India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia and The Philippines, with more to follow via a target of 20 NGO tree-planting partners by the end of this year.  

Via the EcoMatcher App, tree owners can track every tree’s performance from their phones through ID geolocation, learn each tree’s story, its species, plant date, farmer and more, and even engage with each tree while tracking its carbon impact with easy-to-use dashboards. OBTI has also teamed up with the UAE-based advisory and sustainability experts Mātiti Group and Mātiti Green to engage, connect and partner local and regional companies.

“This offers up new and tangibly effective sustainability opportunities for individuals and brands to engage employees, customers and suppliers with a host of integrated digital marketing tools,” said Karen Storey, OBTI Founder & Project Director. “Brands can now fully integrate transparent tree-planting into their business and brand sustainability story on their road to carbon zero.”