Did you know that Trees help clean the air we breathe, filter the water we drink, and provide habitat to over 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity? Forests provide jobs to over 1.6 billion people, absorb harmful carbon from the atmosphere, and are key ingredients in 25% of all medicines.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Together we can plant a forest.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at: https://onetreeplanted.org/
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
After over 15 years as an educator, business leader, and eco-adventurer, Matt wanted a simple way to help individuals and businesses make real progress towards a more sustainable planet. He started One Tree Planted when he realized that planting trees is one of the simplest things we can do for the environment, while also having a big impact on biodiversity, climate change, and health. That’s where the idea for “one dollar, one tree planted” originated, and the rest is history. In 2022 they planted nearly 53 million trees in 74 countries, and they are on pace to plant more than 100 million trees this year.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team, and did you know that trees help clean the air we breathe, filter the water we drink, and provide habitat to over 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and that forests provide jobs to over 1.6 billion people, absorb harmful carbon from the atmosphere, and are key ingredients and 25% of all medicines? Well, chances are you probably weren’t aware of all of those stats, and that’s exactly why I wanted to have our guest on today.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:42):
Our guest is Matt Hill, who’s the founder and chief environmental optimist at the reforestation nonprofit One Tree Planted, and I’m so excited to have him on because we’ve been supporters of One Tree Planted for quite some time now, and we’re excited to share some of the information about what this great organization is doing to make an impact on the environment and sustainability.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:08):
After 15 years as an educator, a business leader, and eco-adventurer, Matt wanted a simple way to help individuals and businesses make real progress towards a more sustainable planet. That’s when he started One Tree Planted when he realized that planting trees is one of the simplest things we can do for the environment, while also having a big impact on biodiversity, climate change, and health. That’s where the $1 one tree planted originated, and the rest is history. One of my favorite things about it is it’s $1, one tree planted, and it makes a huge difference. Here are some really interesting stats from the organization. In 2022, they planted nearly 53 million trees in 74 countries and they’re on pace to nearly double that this year to plant more than 100 million trees around the world this year. It’s just they’re doing tremendous things and making an impact from such a great vantage point, which Matt and I talk about on our interview. Let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (02:09):
So my name is Matt Hill, I’m the president of One Tree Planted.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (02:13):
Well, Matt, One Tree Planted is exactly why I wanted to have you on. Just for a way of introduction, talk about what One Tree Planted is and what you do.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (02:23):
Sure. So we’re a 501c3 based out of Vermont, and for every dollar donated we planted tree. I used to say we plant in four regions around the world, North America, South America, Asia, and Africa, but now have recently added Europe, so now planting in five regions around the world. When you contribute and donate, a lot of people just think it’s not just a tree, it helps with air quality, water quality, biodiversity, job creation, carbon, so many benefits and we call them co-benefits.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (02:52):
Talk a little bit about this concept a little more of what led you to want to start this organization and get things moving with it.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (03:00):
Sure. My undergrad was in poli sci, so I took a lot of environmental classes way back when and I saw that there was a lot of things happening and I felt like people can contribute, small little things do add up collectively, and together we can make a big impact or I say together we can plant a forest. I was working and I just felt that there was a need for people wanting to help the environment but when you look out there, you kind of feel paralyzed, “Oh, it’s too big of a problem,” or if you did find some organizations that are doing incredible work, they really kept themselves as more positioned doom and gloom, were very technical, and when you were reading her website, you just didn’t know what to do. I just really made a pretty looking website, easy to understand the impact, and how your contribution was being made.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (03:48):
One of the things that struck me and why our organization got involved in supporting what you’re doing is when I found out the impact trees have as a whole, and you shared a little bit of that, but I’d love for you just to talk about that it’s more than just a tree and talk about how some of the reforesting helps contribute to this.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (04:08):
A couple of things. There’s so many great organizations out there doing incredible work, watershed, a land trust, and we work at call it the federal level, then the state level, and then we’ll work with a lot of watersheds and those are my favorites. When somebody donates $1 somebody donates $10, it goes into this pot and it starts to fill up really quickly and now we have this pool of capital. When these organizations, and let’s say with the California forest fires, need support and need $18,000 to purchase those trees, we’ll pull that $18,000, give it to the organization on the ground, and we really look at what are those costs of that organization.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (04:47):
There’s four significant cost of tree planting, site prep, and the cost for the actual tree, and then the cost to plant the tree, and then what are the costs to maintain and monitor to making sure that it’s there.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (04:59):
If you take the West coast and let’s take the Pacific Northwest, there’s this great project that we work on doing a million trees on the Pacific Northwest, about 70 plus watersheds that all need from $6,000 maybe up to $80,000. When they plant these trees, it’s helping cool the water temperatures along these critical watersheds that go from Oregon, Washington State, up until British Columbia, and it’s helping with the chinook salmon to come back for spawning. They weren’t coming back for spawning because the water temperatures were too warm and this is also cleaning the water there. But the ultimate end goal is it’s actually helping the resident orca whale in the Pacific Northwest, which is the icon to the Pacific Northwest. There’s four reasons for the decline and on the endangered species list, but one of them is the food supply chain, which is the chinook salmon. People don’t realize how many holistic benefits you have when you plant a tree.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (05:52):
I’ll jump over to another quick one. The Appalachian Trail. Mining for decades, and the soil quality is just so degraded, nothing will really grow there. A lot of work is required, working with a lot of different stakeholders to bring back this area. Again, lots and lots of different amazing projects that we just constantly are getting. We have a team of foresters that vet through these proposals and really want to make sure that that donor that’s donating, your donors being used efficiently, successfully. It’s going to the ground, the trees are surviving. We have an 80% plus tree survivability and that we’re just managing that because that was one thing to me is a donor giving to any charity. How much of my $100 that I donated to that charity is really going to the cause? Is it being planted? Are they working with the local communities? Are they using the right type of trees? And that you get the information back from that charity in terms of how your dollars being used and “Yes, it’s working, we’re growing your tree, we planted your tree, here’s the report.” Sorry to be long-winded, but that’s what we’re doing here.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (06:57):
I think it’s fantastic and that’s what I was hoping you’d share, some of these fine details. I know as an organization that contributes and donates to your organization, one of the things that I found most interesting is that you have so many options. It is a global enterprise at this point so if you feel convicted, you feel a calling to help support some region of the world or even locally. I know for me, I’m based in Georgia, the Appalachian Trail is near and dear. It is a star in the community here. I feel compelled to want to support your efforts on the Appalachian Trail to help build that up or when there are, as you had mentioned, these forest fires in California or out West and trying to rebuild or reforest these areas. I think for me, as someone involved in donating, I think it’s something that I really appreciate, that I have some flexibility to help direct where those funds are being contributed to help out and serve in what you’re doing.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (07:53):
Totally, totally. I think people appreciate the fact that you’re not just giving to a charity and just they’re using it and putting it in whatever far, far away land. You could look at, here’s a project in British Columbia and it’s helping with the moose and the caribou. Oh, here’s something in Australia or in Kenya that’s empowering women and they really read it and try not to overwhelm people with too much content. We try and do a lot of videos and a lot of updates and we have a great marketing team, a great video team, because there’s a lot of amazing stories about these projects and the people on the ground who are doing really all the incredible work.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:29):
Your title is the Chief Environmental Optimist and I really resonated with that in reading your literature as I started learning more about your organization because as you mentioned, when you start thinking about how one person can help do a little bit to contribute in some way, so much of it’s gloom and doom or it’s very top-down enforcement. It’s kind of like a police state almost with government intervention and, you can’t do this and you can’t do that. That’s a little constricting and so what I really appreciated about what you’re doing is providing an optimistic point of view that we can all do something small that really does make a big impact. I’d just like for you to share or talk a little bit more about that and how you’re approaching it differently.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (09:15):
Yeah, no, great point. We want to make it simple for people to get involved and whether you donate $1 or $10 or $100 again, and then we organize a lot of tree planting events in a lot of cities across the world. When you go out in your local community to be able to come out plant trees, get your hands in the dirt, see the important work that’s going on, it inspires you, and then you come back and you’re like, “Oh, we want to do more.” We’ve had some brands come out that did it in Boston or whatever city and they had such an amazing day and realize how important this work is, they found extra funding that might be there and then they gave us a larger donation which would then go color that within the state or within the local area. Then we get a lot of companies that just want to give back to where they source maybe their raw materials from. There’s just a lot of different ways that it might resonate, but keeping it simple and like you said, optimist, not doom and gloom, not too technical because people are paralyzed. For example, I keep hearing, “Carbon, carbon, carbon.” What is carbon? What is a ton of carbon? How does that work? What is my carbon footprint? How’s it being calculated and all that stuff.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (10:23):
But at the end of the day, I always just say, “It’s the consumption of stuff.” We buy a lot of stuff, we fly around and there’s little things you can do that we’ll call it minimize what you do, but you can’t get down to a zero. When you might donate $100 and know that you planted a hundred trees in your local community or picked a project that’s maybe in Australia that’s helping with biodiversity over there, it’s tangible. People, they get it.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (10:48):
You list on your website and other resources based on certain number of trees planted, help neutralize or offset your own general consumption as an average person. Would you talk a little bit about that?
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (11:01):
Sure. The average North American, it’s about 20 tons of carbon just based on, you go to work and bring your kids to school and heating your home, all that type of stuff. When you’re planting trees, trees sequester carbon, right? Then there’s a lot of different types of trees. Some trees will sequester more carbon faster, some trees lo live longer. A whole bunch of factors, but we have a really sharp team that really do that modeling in terms of understanding that.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (11:30):
Then there’s three, just the thing for your listeners and everything to understand, there’s a soft claim so when you go and plant 1000 trees, we can calculate based on the geography and types of trees, what that should be sequestering, but it’s a soft claim. Then you could go and get a third party that would just audit that, just kind of double verify that what we’re saying is actually true. Then there’s certified projects which are Gold Standard, Verra and a lot of work and aspects go into that. Those are kind of the three realms for the average person to know what’s out there.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:02):
I think that for someone that’s thinking of trying to offset their own, you hear about this carbon footprint and how can I reduce this and so on. This a very simple way to know that what you’re doing is making an impact on some of that. What are a couple ways here, Matt, for people to get involved? How can they learn more about what you’re doing?
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (12:22):
You can go to onetreeplanted.org, really appreciate it, and you can see what’s going on, see the amazing projects that are out there. The other thing I think is looking up tree planting events. Earth Month just passed, the month of April and we had over a hundred tree planting events that we organized around the world that were free for people to come out to. Then just, it goes beyond trees. I went down to the Dominican, we looked at a site that we are working with a partner and we saw the communities and then we did a beach cleanup. I’m in this environmental space and when I was doing the beach cleanup to see how much plastic was there and how much styrofoam and all that stuff was broken up and how much of this we digest in our system. There’s a lot of different things that you can consciously do that isn’t making an extreme effort. I’m not saying for everybody out here to go buy a Prius tomorrow, but there’s little things you can do. Bike to work, walk to work, take public transportation, use reusables. I think it’s these small little things that are pretty easy to incorporate in your lifestyle that collectively make a difference.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (13:24):
Well, Matt, this is a great time in the program where we like to make a transition and ask every guest the same four questions before they go. The first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (13:36):
A couple of misses. One was I created a company and I gave up 51% when it was going through this growth area. My partner said, “Don’t give up 51%,” but want, I wanted the capital to expand this and that, but then we lost control. That was a learning curve. Do really want to give up control of the baby that you created and spent years? Won’t do that again. Second one was, I remember a long time ago I wanted to buy a building and everybody’s like, “No, don’t do it, don’t do it.” Right. There’s all these disbelievers, so don’t listen to the naysayers. I take that from Arnold Schwarzenegger from this video once that I watched but it’s so true. Those people believe in themselves, they take those chance and they say, “You don’t move the needle unless you take risk, calculated risks.” Those would be probably the two messes. I didn’t buy that building when I listened to everybody, but back then I had a nickel in my bank account and what did I know at 22 years old? You listen to all these people that you think they know it all. But as you get older and wiser, you kind of figure it out and you got to take those risks. My two takeaways are don’t give up control and then don’t listen to the naysayers.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:41):
Thank you. Well, let’s talk about a make or two you’d like to share.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (14:45):
With One Tree Planted, I was a teacher when I started this and then I had to realize the point where I had to invest into people to help me grow this organization. I think I made the right call and the right pick on the people that helped me grow this organization. The two things that I’ve always said on One Tree Planted is corporate culture and build the brand because you ask the average person walking down the street about a tree planting organization, I’d say 99 out of 100 couldn’t name one and I wanted One Tree Planted to be that name, that brand, and it’s getting there almost 10 years in.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (15:23):
Corporate culture, I think the success has been definitely the people.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (15:28):
Mm-hmm.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (15:29):
I read a lot of books, but one of them always said, hire people smarter than you, so surround yourself by a lot of smart people. Have some amazing people on the team that help the organization, they’re very passionate and they’re all team oriented. That’s definitely one and there’s been a lot of great things, but at the end, when you come into work every day loving what you’re doing and have a great team around you, it’s not work. You just love what you do.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (15:53):
I do a lot of site visits. I get a lucky, have a fantastic job, best job ever, traveling around India, Brazil all over the world, I’m going to Australia this summer, and I get to meet the partners that we’re sending the funds to on the ground and they’re so happy and so grateful for everything, whether it’s the donors listening today that’s going to the ground there and the people I get to meet. It’s just amazing.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:18):
Well, let’s talk about this idea of a multiplier. Name of the shows Multiply Your Success. Have you used a multiplier to grow yourself personally, professionally, that you’d like to share?
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (16:28):
I think you have to have a strong infrastructure in place in order to scale. This year we’re actually call it doubling down. We’re not looking at growth right now. It’s our infrastructure in place, investing into our team so that we can multiply. Then I also think you have to depend on your team, and I always say you have to be accountable. I want people on the team to be challenged and I think you can scale, but that expression sometimes you have to take one step backwards to take two steps forward. There’s things that are there if that counts as a multiplier effect.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:01):
Absolutely. Matt, the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (17:08):
It’s definitely not a number thing, whether it’s number of trees or number of donor dollars that come in, it’s not. It’s really about relationship building and relationship building on many fronts. One, we have amazing partners. We have 400 plus partners in over 70 plus countries and last month in April, we brought 40 partners from around the world to meet and spend time with us and our project managers to understand how we can help them more. Going to what success means is we have amazing planting partners, we have amazing partners, business partners that we work with like yourself that we can have just great relationships and they’re with you and they want to come to these events with us and figure out how they can be more involved. Then the relationships with our team here internally. We’re 100 employees that one tree planted and to me that’s success.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:57):
Well, and Matt, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you are maybe hoping to share and haven’t had a chance to yet?
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (18:04):
We all see what’s going on in the world in terms of just the changes in climate where I think it was November and I’m Canadian, so I use Celsius, but it was like 25 degrees. I’m like, “Never 25 degrees in November. It’s supposed to be almost snowing.” I just think that there’s lots of things that people can do and looking at and you just see it more and more. Just everybody out there you can do your little thing because a lot of people don’t do it because they feel that they’re paralyzed, is too big of a problem, but it’s not. I think a lot of people can do small little things that do collectively add up. That’s what I’ll probably say is my takeaway.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (18:40):
What’s the best way for someone to get connected with the organization if they want to learn more or maybe serve by contributing time or resources?
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (18:49):
Sure. Matt@onetreeplanted.org or go to the website and we have an amazing customer service team. They’re always there to help answer any questions or see if they can help anybody get involved in any way. Again, getting involved is not just a monetary aspect. It’s like, “Go out and plant trees or ask questions on things.” We do webinars with companies where the staff just want to learn about things. We have these amazing videos that we show that are just so inspiring and it’s almost like whatever that word is, tingling, because they’re just so well done and it gets people motivated to want to go out there and save the planet.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:24):
Quick little story here. I was just thinking about this. My youngest son, he’s nine, our grade school in the area, they have an agriculture program, so they tend to the chickens and plant crops and they’re learning all of this fun stuff. It’s a whole lot of fun for them. Somehow we got this little kit of a giant sequoia seeds and so normally they probably would’ve never thought twice about it, but he loved this concept. We are planting giant sequoia trees and so we’ve got the whole program, we’re following the direction. Hopefully in two years they will be large enough and strong enough that we can hopefully have one survive to plant. I thought you’d get a kick out of that.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (20:03):
Come out to our next Forest Fest and meet up and meet the team and get your hands in the dirt with us.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:09):
I would love to do that. Absolutely. And bring some of our team members over here. Thank you so much, Matt, for the time. I’m really grateful for the opportunity and for your time to share the great things you’re doing to make a difference.
Matt Hill, OneTreePlanted (20:22):
My pleasure, much appreciated. Happy to be here.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:26):
Matt, thank you so much for being a guest on our show. We really appreciate it and all the great work you’re doing around the world. Let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. Takeaway number one is when Matt talked about most people getting discouraged because of the gloom and doom approach to sustainability and environmental issues, and instead, he’s really focused in on having a more positive approach to this. Candidly, that’s one of the things that attracted me to their organization is that there are ways we can do this without constantly focusing on death and destruction, that we can have a positive outlook and approach to this.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:08):
Takeaway number two is when he talked about a miss and he shared from a business standpoint, he had previously started a company and he gave up 51% of that. He said don’t give up control as one of his misses that he learned from and the second one was to not listen to your naysayers. He shared a story about how he had an opportunity to buy a property and ultimately was talked out of it by those naysayers.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:32):
Takeaway number three is the impact of trees, that it really is a form of a multiplier and it’s a little bit of what I view the impact to the jobs community that manufacturers have. Manufacturers have the largest ripple effect or net effect in terms of job creation and economic engine that it creates. To me, it seemed like trees are a similar comparison when you start thinking about how it impacts, it multiplies out, the ripple is huge for the environment, for land, air, water, for humans and for jobs and for work and for the animals and other plant diversity and animal populations. I thought that was just a great takeaway and he gave that example of planting the trees in the Pacific Northwest along the river lines and how that helps clean the air and clean the water and then it brings the salmon back, which then brings back the orca whale and so on and it makes an impact.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:31):
Now it’s time for today’s win-win. Today’s win-win is when Matt said, “Together we can plant a forest.” I thought that was brilliant. Together we can plant a forest, meaning the small little things they all add up, they add up collectively. He’s a great example. You plant that one tree, you have $1 to spend or to give to his charity and their organization and what they’re doing, that plants one tree and that contributes to the overall, which is on pace this year to plant more than 100 million trees all around the world to make a global impact. I thought that was just a great little takeaway. Yes, what you do on a small scale, that all adds up to a lot when you look at it there. That’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review, and remember, if you or anyone might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.
