We are a company on a mission to make the world a greener and more social place.
Impact Hero is trying to enhance the positive impact on the planet, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Our goal is to help save our planet A.
In this blog post, we will introduce ourselves, elaborate on our goals and also explain how we empower companies to create and communicate positive impact for the global transformation.
To put it in short, we empower companies to become multipliers for positive change! That is, we help them make a net positive impact on the most pressing challenges the world is facing today. We function as a B2B2C solution provider and marketplace for impact products, all of which promote the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN.
We are an international team of diverse and dedicated people passionate about making a change. Our founders have profound experience in e-commerce, scaling businesses, interdisciplinary responsibility, and business ethics.
We started out with GROW MY TREE in October 2020. Our female founders, Nadja & Dijana launched a company to plant trees in the Global South. The plan was to help reforestation and biodiversity, plus, very importantly thus accomplish social goals like supporting local farmers create jobs and income. All this by working together with companies who would give away sustainable gifts like trees planted to their key stakeholders, among other services.
Dijana was working on her PhD in Responsible Leadership and Business Ethics in Berlin, when she realized that there is very little focus on the most urgent challenge of our times: climate change. So she and her friend Nadja happened to have one of those late-night, deep discussions among friends. It was about what we can do to save a future for our children. What can we do today to later say: ‘Yes, we did something purposefully to fight climate change.’ It was nothing short of how to save that earth we live on.
Our founders took matters into their own hands: Dijana and Nadja started GROW MY TREE! They began with a simple Minimum Viable Product and tested the upcoming Christmastime at the end of 2020 to see how many people would gift a tree instead of any other (often necessary) present. As we see today, it turned out to be a very good idea! It was a success story from day one! The company grew into a team of 12 full-time employees today, who all live and breathe for the company and a better future.
And most importantly, the company contributes to creating a scalable business model that can champion greater social awareness and ecological positive impact. GROW MY TREE awakens individuals and businesses alike for addressing the urgency that we have to do something.
Planting trees in the Global South, where sustainability and social impact are most needed, we all are thrilled to be able to achieve many of the SDGs! By planting native trees together with our partners, NGOs, and other initiatives, we not only successfully provide long-term work and income for the local farmers, but we also are able to start supporting education as well as help to maintain and enrich forestation and biodiversity!
Until this day, GROW MY TREE has planted over 1,55 million trees! That means we worked with more than 400 companies and engaged with more than 56,000 individual customers. The following list not only portrays GROW MY TREE's wonderful story but also the fuel that sparked us to go for more and build Impact Hero:
Those 1,55 million trees planted accomplished:
When looking at all the impact achieved and the lives changed, we quickly realized that there is so much more to do! We need to clean our rivers and oceans from plastics, we need to change the way we do farming, we need to protect our coral reefs, help support education for young people and so much more!
This is the reason why we created Impact Hero: We aim to use the power of companies to create and then communicate even more positive impact on the planet. Our products and our technologies seamlessly integrate with their business processes and engage key stakeholders.
We entrust businesses to become powerful advocates for positive change - while simultaneously boosting their sales.
Companies implement gifting impact products, like trees planted or plastic collected, to their customers, or employees into business transactions. When redeeming their gift we inspire people to themselves give away an impact product. Thus, more and more individuals get involved.
Firstly, we advise our B2B customers on how they can integrate positive impact into their business transactions, such as contracts signed, employees hired, or a product sold. Secondly, we offer standardized value chains for a high-quality supply of impact products. Finally, we source and develop an offer on the production of impact products based on the SDGs.
On top of that, we provide our customers with certificates, documents, and communication materials as well as a possible storyline to get their impact across. This is what we call the positive impact cycle.
Our impact products enable solutions in three areas:
Let's give you a short overview of our current impact products. We are working on many more which we will introduce shortly. For now, we have the following:
We focus on the global south where the need for ecological, social, and economic impact is highest. We use modern and custom-made methodologies, stay up-to-date with the latest science, and utilize technology for transparency to maximize our impact.
With the pressing challenges we are facing in social as well as economic terms, and with goals like Environmental Social Governance (ESG) and SDG becoming more and more respected, companies rethink their role in society. Many are setting more nuanced, ambitious goals.
As Forbes put it:
“There’s an overwhelming demand for brands to step up. If your brand isn’t helping your consumers improve their environmental and social footprint, then you’re in danger of disappointing them.”
Consumer demand requires companies to take responsibility and help slow down CO2-related climate change.
Globally, 83% of consumers said companies should only earn a profit if they also deliver a positive impact”, stated Forbes in 2020.
Now, millennials are rising in their careers. They request to work with businesses who not only have taken responsibility and installed sustainability measures. They want more than just becoming carbon-neutral. This generation aims to go net positive. That means, they not only want companies to give back more to society than they took out, but also make a positive impact.
No wonder, sustainably engaged companies have a 50% higher brand value among customers as well as employees.
So, what do our customers have to say about our approach and services? Let’s listen to what some of our customers have to say about us.
For example, Chris Donovan, Head of CSR, Alcatel-Lucent:
"We plant a tree a month for every employee and encourage (with a voucher) every employee to plant at least one more to match. Together, we can build back our forests for the safety of our planet."
Julian Kötting, Head of Retail for The Body Shop says,
"For us at The Body Shop, the topic of sustainability has been part of our daily work right from the start. Being able to hand over GROW MY TREE certificates to our employees and thus plant trees in their name is therefore 100% in line with our values."
Unsure of what the SDGs are about? Impact Hero directly meets several of the UN’s goals with impact products.
These are a few examples:
Our logo takes all these ideas of supporting the SDGs as well as our stance for alternating and continuing impacts. The colorful little pieces in a circle purposefully resemble the colors of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals-icons. Those blocks of color look like they are about to nudge each other and trickle a domino effect. This is what happens when we make a change in one thing, which sets off a chain reaction and causes a change in others. That's the power of Impact Hero.
Let's continue this journey together. Achieve the UN's goals and create a fairer future on top of sparking your sales, your employer branding, and your sustainability measures sound appealing to you? We bet.
A tree, a coral reef, a clean river - each of our interactions has a positive impact. Let's “impactify” every business process!
