A group of climate activists say a £4m investment will help them plant millions of trees around the world. Bristol-based Ecologi, which uses subscriptions to pay for environmental projects, got the money from investment group General Catalyst. Elliott Coad, one of Ecologi's founders, said his ultimate dream was to plant "a million trees an hour". General Catalyst was one of the first companies to back Snapchat, Airbnb and Deliveroo. The team behind Ecologi - husband and wife Elliott Coad and Lucy Jack and their friend Alex Price - describe the business as a "subscription service for the planet". Founded in 2019, it is backed by nearly 16,000 members of the public and more than 6,000 businesses. Ecologi works with groups like US-based Eden Reforestation Project, paying local people to plant trees in their own areas. Mr Coad said Ecologi began when he and his wife were looking at their own carbon footprints back in 2019. "At the time I was commuting to London and buying fancy coffees and I started to wonder what good the equivalent of one coffee could do if I spent that money on climate action instead," he said. "When I looked into it I was blown away that I could offset my entire carbon footprint for about £5 a month, plus plant about 140 trees a year. "That idea just got stuck in my head." Ecologi began as a non-profit but Mr Coad said the founders soon realised they could do more as a business. "When you are dealing with climate change, the one thing you don't have is time," he said. "Non-profits and charities have a history of growing slower than say things like Spotify or TikTok, which feel like they just appear out of thin air. "So Ecologi is built to make a profit but we try and align ourselves with the ethos of a charity." The platform works by letting people around the world calculate their carbon footprint based on where they live and their... |