You might be familiar with the Google-alternative, eco-friendly search engine Ecosia, which uses 80 percent of its ad-generated revenue to plant millions of trees around the world.
If you have been using the search engine to help fight climate change, you’ll probably be excited to hear about TreeCard — a debit card that helps fund reforestation efforts every time you use it. The card does so via the interchange fees generated by each bank transaction that takes place.
TreeCard is the product of a yet-to-launch fintech company in the UK that has recently secured $5.1 million in seed funding to roll out its eco-friendly card. It will first launch in the UK and later expand to other European countries and the US.
Using the card is fairly simple. Once you link the TreeCard app to your bank account, you can start routing your transactions through the card. Every time you make a purchase, a portion of the card’s spending fees go towards reforestation projects run by none other than Ecosia, which is also a pre-seed investor in TreeCard.
To make users aware of their impact, the app linked to the wooden TreeCard lets users monitor how many trees they’ve helped plant. It operates through MasterCard’s financial services and uses back-end card processing services from Synapse.
Similar to Ecosia, TreeCard has pledged to invest 80 percent of the profits it makes from interchange fees into planting trees and other conservation projects. So far, more than 140,000 people have signed up for TreeCard’s waiting list, with the card expected to launch in the next few months.
Image source: TreeCard
