4FORESTS initial funding

How donations totaling €35,000 can transform into millions of € worth of new forests.

We all know that climate change and global warming are real threats. We also know that planting forests are a great way to combat these phenomena as trees are great carbon sinks. However, a lesser-known fact is that when deforestation occurs, the larger part -if not all- of this stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

On many occasions, deforestation can be attributed to poorer agriculture and livestock farmers, who clear forests to plant crops or herd their cattle, and so provide in their livelihood. However, the cleared land is not suited for these purposes and is quickly exhausting, leading to the necessity of cutting down yet more forests.

The solution to break this vicious circle is to switch their unsustainable business model to sustainable forestry. Enriching the existing forests, and restoring the exhausted cleared areas, will provide them with better income and contribute to a healthy climate for the world.

Why don’t small landowners jump on this opportunity? Well, trees take time to grow and produce an income, time poorer peasants do not have.

We want to finance their switch to sustainable forestry. This way we are protecting and creating forests, and bettering the living standards of local smallholders and indigenous communities alike.

We want to acquire the funds for this financing through the exploitation of a web portal that includes a search engine and a partner directory (to gain affiliate commissions). People will do what they normally do on the internet, -shop at Amazon, search, make travel arrangements for example- the same way they have always done, only now using our portal.

So why the€35,000? We want to set up a Foundation, in Spain, that will create and exploit this portal. We have the technology and the know how, on programming applications, marketing, and affiliate programs. Furthermore, we have a great system to create forests (The Generation Forest concept) and an experienced forestry partner. We have motivated people that will work hard to make this work, and make this big. As a not-for-profit, we get $10,000 per month in ad grants from Google. Microsoft will help us with $3,500 in Azure credits (which can be used to pay for searches and transform into $60,000+ of capital) per year. Other grants are available and will be actively pursued.

Let us have a look at another search engine for a moment, one that makes a few million euros per month. Their business model and USP are simple. A search engine that includes paid ads in the results (the way Google makes most of its money), coupled with the promise to use most of the revenue to plant trees, as incentive for ecological minded people to use that search engine.

The economics behind it are simple as well. They pay Microsoft $7 per 1,000 searches (max, because as traffic grows, you get better deals) and 1,000 ad impressions pay an average of $12.5. The profit is $5.5 per 1,000 searches.

The functionality is simple. Someone types in a search term and presses search, this term is sent to a service on Microsoft/Bing, and this service returns the search results. We have already created this functionality, and it is active on our search engine page search4forests.org. The source code can easily be extended to include all kinds of functionality and improvements.

Affiliates like Amazon, AliExpress, Airbnb, Booking, and many others will pay interesting commissions for sending buyers their way. With traffic, a partners' directory easily generates good revenue.

No doubt the first 2 years will be hard, as we will need to earn our spot in the market. But with our vision as a better ecological and social enterprise, we can gain market share, make a real difference, and contribute to the fight against climate change and global warming.

And create millions of euros worth of new forests.