the rainforest charity
The idea behind Cool Earth is that if we can help pay to conserve an acre then we can make a real difference. Perhaps the biggest difference we will make in our whole lives. Sir David Attenborough.
Sir David Attenborough. 2
Contents
04
Welc om e
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Th e p r ob lem
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Th e solution
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Th e p r oc ess
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W hy to c hoose t o w o rk w i t h C o o l Ea rt h ?
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Ca se stud ies
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O ur p a r tner s
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Com m unic a tion t o o l s
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Find out m or e
A message from our founders
“Our corporate partners are vital for raising funds and raising profile. By working with committed and imaginative businesses across every industry, Cool Earth has engaged with new generations of consumers eager to make a real difference to fight climate change.”
Rt.Hon.Frank Field Member of Parliament Co-Founder of Cool Earth
“One in every five tonnes of our CO2 emissions comes from tropical deforestation. If you’re not serious about stopping the destruction, you’re not serious about climate change.”
Johan Eliasch CEO Head Sports Equipment Co-Founder of Cool Earth
Cloud forest – Ecuador. 3
Welcome Cool Earth is a young charity that is doing big things. With over 140,000 individuals from 14 different countries behind us and the support of many companies including Tropicana, Brother and Head, Cool Earth is becoming a key tool in tackling climate change. The charity is supported and endorsed by a range of environmental experts, including Sir David Attenborough, Professor James Lovelock and Sir Nicholas Stern. So, what’s the reason for all this support? It’s because tropical forests play a crucial role in climate change by locking in vast amounts of carbon. Protecting a single acre with Cool Earth makes a big difference – 260 tonnes of difference to be precise. In addition to locking up vast amounts of CO2 rainforests are also vital to the world’s water cycle. Furthermore Cool Earth’s avoided deforestation projects help rainforest communities, the valuable local biodiversity and provide other environmental services that can ultimately help secure the survival of our planet. By working with Cool Earth you get an exceptionally cost effective way for your business to undertake significant environmental action and engage with stakeholders on a range of issues. What do we promise in return for your support?
• Direct Action – The forest you secure is genuinely endangered, so you, your customers and your staff know that without your intervention it would have been destroyed. • Value for Money – Whether you are choosing to work with Cool Earth from a CSR perspective, a cost effective alternative to offsetting or as an aid to marketing your product or service you can rest assured avoided deforestation projects will deliver huge environmental benefits for a fraction of the cost of alternative options. • Tools For Communication – Depending on the level of donation you’ll get a wide range of tools from Cool Earth so you can communicate to your stakeholders the positive impact your donation is having.
Matthew Owen – Director, Cool Earth. 4
Green-billed toucan – Brazil.
The problem Deforestation accounts for almost a fifth of ALL manmade carbon emissions, that’s more than the entire global transport sector. If the world is serious about halting climate change we need to stabilise the release of these gases immediately. Preventing deforestation isn’t just one of the best ways to combat climate change, it’s also one of the most cost effective and it has other hugely important environmental and ethical implications too: • An acre of rainforest, if cut down and burnt, releases 260 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. • Rainforest are vital for the world’s water cycle, the Amazon rainforest alone provides a fifth of the world’s fresh water. One acre transpires 76,000 litres of water into the atmosphere every year meaning that Cool Earth’s projects pump over 16 billion litres of water into the atmosphere each year. • Rainforests are home to two-thirds of all living animal and plant species on the planet, with hundreds of millions of species still undiscovered. • Some 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their welfare or some aspect of their livelihoods. • Rainforests are critical to global weather systems acting as the world’s thermostat.
7,000
Preventing deforestation is the cheapest and best way of tackling climate change. By working with local communities to protect their forest livelihoods, Cool Earth is proving that we can take action on a big scale.
Tropical Deforestation
UK
Germany
India
Japan
Russia
China
US
Sir Nicholas Stern – Author of The Stern Review
6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000
Scale: Million tonnes CO2e
• The forests are known as the “world’s pharmacy” because of their wealth of natural medicines and destroying them can destroy the chances of new breakthroughs in treatment.
2,000 1,000 0
Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide Emitted (2007) Source: UNFCC
Logging road in Western Province – Papua New Guinea. 5
The solution With the help of our 130,000 individual supporters and businesses it is possible to do something to protect this valuable natural resource. The idea behind Cool Earth is that rainforests are worth much more left standing, both for the planet and for local communities. Cool Earth’s conservation model is straightforward and effective. All Cool Earth’s projects are community led, working with the people who are best placed to monitor the forest right around the clock. By securing legal land tenure for the local communities and developing sustainable incomes that are dependent on the trees kept standing, Cool Earth helps to out price logging, making sure conservation goes hand in hand with better livelihoods.
Carbon offsetting? It’s just a joke. To pay money to plant trees, to think you’re offsetting the carbon? You’re probably making matters worse. You’re far better off giving to the charity Cool Earth. Professor James Lovelock – Author of The Gaia Theory.
Cool Earth only protects rainforest that without intervention will be cut down in the next 18 months plus it works strategically saving trees that act as a protective shield to a wider landscape behind.
Ashaninka Child in the Rio Ene – Peru. 6
The process
1 2 When you learn the global scale of the issue and how saving rainforests genuinely offers an actionable solution to the issue, it really has a profound impact. There isn’t a person I’ve sat down with and explained the issue to who hasn’t been totally blown away at the end.
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Target destruction.
• Identify at-risk rainforest to protect both the most endangered trees and create a shield to adjacent forest. • Form community partnerships through NGOs who already have a long-term relationship with the local people. • Gain legal land tenure for the communities that live there. Fund sustainable protection.
• Develop ten year community-led protection plans. • Develop workshops to enable forest communities to increase the amount of sustainable goods they produce and get a fairer price at market for them; products include coffee, cocoa and acai berries. • Liaise with national & regional governments to establish protected area status. Monitor, maintain and inform.
• Provide 24/7 protection and monitoring of the forest by community rangers. • Update sponsors with transparent and clear information about specific conservation, biodiversity and community outcomes. • Provide donors with a range of tools to inform their stakeholders of the work they are doing.
Andrew Hartshorn – Senior Marketing Manager, Tropicana.
School Children from Camantavishi – Peru. 7
The business case for working with Cool Earth Many businesses believe that supporting Cool Earth is the most cost effective way to tackle their carbon footprint and take meaningful action when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility. Protecting an acre of threatened rainforest costs from as little as £60. This positive environmental action allows an organisation to talk with stakeholders positively, not only about CO2 but also the conservation of water, biodiversity, communities and environmental services. A cost efficient alternative to offsetting
Brand enhancement and winning business
There is no more efficient way to supercharge your carbon responsibility than by working with Cool Earth. Why pay £6 to £7 to offset one tonne of CO2 with a carbon offsetting scheme when you can do a lot more for the environment at a lower price with a Cool Earth avoided deforestation project. We offer a direct action carbon mitigation initiative that locks up a minimum of five times your carbon footprint but is a fraction of the cost of offsetting.
Do you have an environmental product or service that you want to enhance with a marketing strategy that will help engage your customers and reach a wider demographic? With Cool Earth you can enable your customers to protect a piece of rainforest every time they buy your product or service. Rainforest can be protected in a variety of metrics to suit your needs, from acres to tree species to square feet; ten square foot for example can be protected from as little as 1.4 pence a time.
See HEAD and Prologis case studies on page 9.
See Red Sky case study on page 11.
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CSR goals
Engage with customers
Saving rainforest isn’t just about carbon, the money you give to Cool Earth means you also support indigenous people and help protect some of the world’s most valuable biodiversity. Water is emerging as a critically scarce resource with farsighted companies taking a lead in this area. With each acre of rainforest protected contributing 76,000 litres of water to the Earth’s atmosphere every year it means that by working with Cool Earth on our avoided deforestation program your money is really doing something positive for the planet. Rainforest offers excellent CSR value over a range environmental issues that you can engage your stakeholders with.
With a minimum donation you can use the Cool Earth logo on your product and depending on the size of the donation you can also use a range of our engagement tools including certificates, mini sites, videos and maps to let your customers know what you are doing to help the battle climate change. Many companies undertake valuable charity work yet fail to communicate their activities properly; Cool Earth gives you the tools to let your stakeholders know what you are doing to help the environment.
See Vivienne Westwood case study on page 10.
See Tropicana case study on page 11.
Case study HEAD & PROLOGIS
Case study Vivienne Westwood
A cost efficient alternative to offsetting
CSR goals
For those companies who wish to mitigate their carbon impact Cool Earth offers a great value way for organisations to keep vast amounts of CO2 where it belongs. Companies like Head and Prologis recognise the value of avoided deforestation projects in terms of the CO2 they lock up as well as the added environmental benefits encompassed with them and excellent value for money that they offer. Since 2007 HEAD has partnered Cool Earth and has resulted in a worldwide environmental program – the first sporting goods company to “supercharge” its carbon responsibility in this way. Through the partnership with Cool Earth, HEAD is matching ten times its annual carbon emissions via Cool Earth’s avoided deforestation programs. HEAD is committed to saving over 7,000 acres/28 km2 (per year) of mature rainforest from destruction – which equals the size of more than 100,000 tennis courts.
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The building contractors Prologis build warehouses for many well known names including Tesco’s, M&S and BMW. They have chosen to use Cool Earth to mitigate the building’s unavoidable embodied carbon emissions through our avoided deforestation projects. In addition to communicating the amount of CO2 they are locking up they have found that communicating the area protected via our images and videos is a powerful tool that helps engage stakeholders with their environmental message.
Vivienne Westwood has decided to fight climate change after voicing frustration that money pledged by governments three years ago has yet to be distributed. She believes the Cool Earth model is exactly what is needed to help protect threatened rainforests and has donated £1 million from her company to Cool Earth from her company’s corporate social responsibility budget. She says “I’m supporting Cool Earth because it is the best investment we can make in our future. Tomorrow is too late. Governments have been talking about saving rainforest for 40 years and only half is left. We can’t rely on anything but our own actions and Cool Earth gives us the chance to act now.” With rainforest protection covering a range of environmental issues Vivienne has demonstrated the important environmental action a company’s CSR budget can make.
Case study Red Sky Brand enhancement
Engage with customers
With every sale of a large packet of Red Sky snacks they protected 10 sq ft of rainforest. 5 sq ft was kept standing when someone purchased a small bag of their snacks.
Cause related marketing partnerships is an effective way to bring commercial benefit to a company whilst giving customers the opportunity to be green at an affordable price. We created a partnership for Tropicana US that ran on 500 million cartons of orange juice.
The Cool Earth logo was clearly visible on their product giving their brand green credibility and showing their genuine commitment to making a direct impact on tackling climate change. Via this promotion Red Sky saved 3,334 acres of rainforest and locked up tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon in the process. Red Sky asked us to help them differentiate their brand in what is a fiercely competitive market and made the rainforest message part of the core element of their brand, making it easier for snack lovers to indulge in their favourite food whilst feeling good about helping the environment.
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Case study Tropicana Rainforest Rescue
Running on-pack for 12 months, Rescue the Rainforest allowed Tropicana consumers across the US the chance to save 100 sq ft of endangered rainforest in Peru, by simply entering an on-pack code at tropicanarainforest.com. Tropicana has put the issue of climate change on the breakfast table of millions of US consumers. Tropicana calculate that their message has reached 25 million people. In total Tropicana are responsible for saving 57,311,600 sq ft of threatened rainforest and approximately 34,000 tonnes of CO2 have been prevented from being released into the atmosphere.
This promotion has been delivered at a fraction of the cost it would normally have taken to offset the same amount via the carbon markets. It is a much better use of a budget, and a much better marketing tool, than just informing customers that you have offset your emissions.
Other corporate partners that support Cool Earth
St Lukes
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANTS
Cacao Pods – The beans inside are the key ingredient for chocolate. 11
Communication tools We can provide you with a range of communication tools to incorporate into your marketing or internal communications. These include our logo, certificates, rainforest facts and the exact area of rainforest on Google Maps as well as a landing page on our web site. Depending on the level of donation we can also provide you with videos from the rainforest about how your donation is helping for you to distribute, an interactive video taking you from your HQ to the exact area of rainforest you protect and a bespoke report detailing exactly what has been achieved as a result of your activities. We can also let our 130,000 supporters know of the good work you are doing via our database as well as our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
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Find out more Saving rainforest isn’t just a good way to communicate to your customers that you are a responsible environmental company, it also offers excellent return on investment. Whether you are looking for an alternative to offsetting, enhancing your product or brand or meeting other CSR goals, Cool Earth offers you the opportunity to make a positive environmental difference at a price that your business can afford. For further information or to arrange to discuss how we can help you achieve your goals please contact: Ben Gray – Cool Earth Commercial Manager email: ben.gray@coolearth.org mobile: +44 (0)7973 814466 office and general enquiries: +44 (0)20 7499 7800
We couldn’t find a better way to protect our environment than to support the great work that Cool Earth does. We would encourage more organisations to support Cool Earth. Simon Richards – Head of Sustainability, Talk Talk.
Toco Toucan. 13