How Two GoodFX Clients Put 2,191 Trees in the Ground in Six Months Through Everyday FX Activity

Environmental Impact | Carbon Neutrality | Payments with Purpose

What does a business’s finance team have to do with a forest in Madagascar? More than you might think.

Money never sleeps. But it can still be made to work for the right reasons.

Recently, two GoodFX clients proved exactly that. Through their international payments activity, they collectively enabled JUST ONE TREE to plant 2,191 trees across some of the world's most critically deforested regions.

No additional cost to the client. No fundraising drives. No charity gala dinners. Just business, done better.

Meet JUST ONE TREE

The premise is beautifully simple. JUST ONE Tree is a non-profit initiative making an impact in the fight against climate change through global reforestation. They plant trees in areas severely affected by mass deforestation, maximising the effect on global warming.

Just £1 plants one tree. Every time.

But the work behind that pound is far from simple.

JUST ONE TREE chooses its reforestation partners extremely carefully, ensuring the money raised means a tree in the ground. Each partner goes through a rigorous due diligence process and must meet strict criteria such as governance, environmental impact, and social impact. They need to be well established and respected organisations with a completely tried, tested, and successful infrastructure in place.

The trees themselves are planted in some of the world's most biodiverse and most threatened regions. Madagascar, Indonesia, Brazil, Kenya, Nepal, Mozambique, Haiti, Zambia.

The impact extends well beyond carbon capture. JUST ONE TREE concentrates on restoring the entire ecosystem by planting on land and in the oceans, and also focuses on shaping the next generation of planet conscious thinkers by bringing environmental education into classrooms.

That educational thread matters enormously to the team. Their annual JUST ONE Tree Day, a non uniform fundraising event in schools, has so far brought environmental resources into the classrooms of over 250,000 children and spread climate awareness into their wider school communities, while simultaneously raising funds to plant yet more trees.

And in the oceans? JUST ONE TREE funds mangrove planting and kelp regeneration projects because they understand, as any good scientist will tell you, that a healthy planet requires healthy seas as much as healthy forests.

The Impact So Far

Now 6.5 years since their launch, JUST ONE TREE has already planted 5.5 million trees across sixteen countries close to the equator, where the positive effect on limiting global warming is greatest.

Their impact has extended to providing 48,000 work days in local communities, restoring 2570 acres of land, and expanding their support to reforestation projects across sixteen countries over five continents.

Through all of this they have increased biodiversity both on land and in the oceans, improved lives in the communities where they plant, and raised environmental awareness in classrooms worldwide.

The model works because the communities benefit too.

JUST ONE TREE reforestation partners hire and train local community members to plant, water, weed, maintain and monitor the trees. The community members protect their new forests because they now have a vested interest in their survival.

That is how you create forests that endure.

Where Do They Go From Here?

The map keeps growing. New countries, new ocean projects, and a clear ambition to embed JUST ONE TREE Day into schools worldwide.

For businesses, the goal is equally straightforward. Make tree planting structural, not symbolic.

The routes in are many. The only barrier is deciding to start.

Where GoodFX Comes In

At GoodFX, one third of our trading profits go to causes our clients care about.

For two of our clients, JUST ONE TREE was that cause. Through the simple act of converting currency, their trading activity generated the funds to plant 2,191 trees.

Those trees are now in the ground. They are growing. They are sequestering carbon, stabilising soil, filtering water, creating habitat, and providing livelihoods.

Do you ever sit in a green finance conference and wonder why there is an air gap between the theory and any practical action? Hopefully this helps end the waffle.

The FX trades happen anyway. The question is simply whether the profit they generate disappears into a margin, or whether it does something remarkable instead.

It costs our clients nothing beyond choosing who benefits.

If your organisation uses FX, invoice finance, trade finance or loans, you could do your part.

If you would like to direct the profit from those trades towards environmental or social causes, whether JUST ONE TREE or a charity of your own choosing, we would love to have a conversation.

And your CFO cannot object because it does not cost anything.

Reach out at info@goodfx.co.uk, and let's talk about how your money can do more than move.