The Startup B’n’Tree makes travel sustainable – with one mouse click. B’n’Tree plants trees with every travel and hotel booking, completely free of charge for the user – a single click on its website is enough.
How does B’n’Tree work?
Every time you book a hotel bed, they plant a tree. For free. It costs nothing to the booker, except a mouse click. Whether it is a business trip, city escape or family break. Bookings from five continents have already made it possible to plant over 78,000 new trees in ten countries on four continents. The start-up has already been able to win several well-known partners such as Best Western, TripAdvisor, Expedia, HRS, Skyscanner and Booking.com for its cause. The best thing about it: 100% of all income flows into the reforestation of deforested rainforest areas.
B’n’Tree’s (Success) Story
Since the start of the project in September 2017, more than 78,000 new trees have been planted on four continents. „The bookings now come from five different continents – a clear sign that sustainable travel is enjoying a global following,“ Founder, Chris Kaiser, says happily.
Kaiser came up with the idea for B’n’Tree during one of the countless contract negotiations for a nature tourism company in southern Thailand. „From the final sales price, an incredible amount of money is invested in marketing and sales commissions. I thought to myself: ‚Why not use a small percentage of it to do something good for Mother Earth?‘ And B’n’Tree was already born.“
He says about his motivation: „The main motivation for planting trees comes from my love for elephants, which I found in Thailand. Since 2012 I have been working in close contact with these majestic animals, and unfortunately I hear far too often about unnecessary deaths due to habitat loss. B’n’Tree is my answer to the initially felt helplessness about this global problem.“
The benefits of B’n’Tree
Trees create habitats for endangered animal species and thus prevent the extinction of species. They help fight against climate change by storing CO2, minimizing land erosion and restoring natural water cycles. In addition, planting trees creates new jobs and sustainable incomes for the local population.
Local communities benefit not only from planting trees, but also from the consequences, such as harvesting fruit trees, more successful fishing in reforested mangrove forests or emerging nature tourism.
Funding
The trees are financed from the marketing budget of the booking platforms: For each paid booking, a marketing expense allowance is paid to B’n’Tree, which is invested in planting trees. If customers buy directly from the booking platforms, the additional profit remains in their pockets or is invested in TV advertising, Google ads, etc.
Partner
Thanks to partnerships with renowned companies such as Best Western, TripAdvisor, Expedia, HRS, Skyscanner and Booking.com, at least one tree is planted for every travel and hotel booking started at www.bedandtree.com – completely free of charge for the user.
Since September 2018 hostelbookers has also been involved. „Now even travelers with limited budgets can plant trees,“ says Chris Kaiser, the founder of B’n’Tree. Further partnerships are under negotiation.
Future vision of B’n’Tree
78,000 trees is a good start. But that’s just the beginning. „In the next two years we will plant a million trees. By 2025 I want to live in a world where planting trees is just as common as morning coffee. Only simpler. And cheaper,“ says Kaiser, who doesn’t drink coffee at all, but hot chocolate.
But as long as he makes it easy for travellers to plant trees, we want to let him get away with it.
Anyone can participate
Anyone can get involved by simply visiting the B’n’Tree website before any future trip. There you choose your trusted online travel portal and place your booking. B’n’Tree takes care of the rest. Like we said before: Users do not pay one cent extra.
If you liked this article and would like to make your trips more sustainable in the future, then you may also like our article on Zero Waste Flights.
We all know that travelling with several people like friends or family can quickly become stressful. Especially if you are the person in charge. When is the flight again? Who owes whom what? And where is the booking confirmation from the hotel?
Lambus solves all these problems and, like a “Swiss army knife”, offers numerous useful functions (such as the management of documents, travel expenses and photos) in just one platform. Users can create their own trip using the interactive map and have an overview at all times thanks to the travel itinerary, real-time planning and notifications of changes. Our algorithm also allows us to suggest handpicked trips to our users in the future, giving them the best customized experience.
