Ecosia has already established itself as a highly effective way of integrating do-gooding into your everyday life.
The green alternative to a Google search, which has used ad revenue to plant more than 100 million trees over the past 10 years, is now hitting us where it matters. Our wallets.
TreeCard, a collaboration between Ecosia and Mastercard, is a 100% free card made from sustainably sourced FSC cherry wood and recycled plastic bottles.
It comes with all the normal banking functions—an integrated app to check transactions, ability to split bills with friends, connections to Apple, Google and Samsung Pay—and works anywhere that Mastercard works.
What’s new is that every time people pay using TreeCard, the store pays a small transaction fee to fund reforestation projects.
“Every $60 you spend on everyday payments will plant a tree,” TreeCard promises.
So much ? for a Thursday morning! ☺️
10k signups and counting… ?
A massive thank you to everyone who has signed up already ? https://t.co/aMzNY8mCJK
— TreeCard (@TreeCardApp) October 15, 2020
On the website, TreeCard is keen to stress its credentials as a trusted source. “TreeCard isn’t a corporate marketing ploy or a profit-first business: 80% of interchange fee profits go towards Ecosia tree planting projects every month. ?”
It adds that the company can produce more than 300,000 cards from the wood of a single tree, “so we’ll never need to use more than a few trees to produce all our cards.”
In the FAQs, Ecosia also notes that the for those using payment methods linked to a smartphone, they can even forgo the physical card altogether and just use the digital account.
The cards will be shipped to the US in early 2021, and the aim is to start shipping cards to the EU by the end of 2021.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” TreeCard concludes. “But it can plant them.”
