Planning for the future is hard, in our personal lives, finances, and especially in business. There are so many strategies, so many potential sacrifices, and so many unknowns. At Sandhills, aiming for longevity is one of our core tenets that we use to help guide the decisions we make, and that often means putting off short-term gains for better far-off futures.
As we consider the future of our world for all of the people that live on this earth today, and those that will be born in the future, there is one fact that is definitively known: we need more trees.
In 2015 it was calculated that we cut down 15 billion trees per year and at the current rate of deforestation, we will have removed every single tree on the planet in 300 years or less, even with what is currently being planted.
If our natural world is going to survive and remain a place that is habitable for human kind, we have to change this trajectory. To do this, we must plant more trees and this cannot be solely the effort of conservation groups.
There is no doubt about it; for our population to thrive into the future and for the natural world around us to survive, we the people have to plant more trees. It’s a simple fact that has been known for a long time.
Planting trees is far from the only required action that we have to take, but it is one of the simplest that every person can contribute to with very little effort.
So planning for the future is full of challenges and unknowns, but contributing to a better future is easy in this regard. Collectively, we can all help ensure a better future for ourselves and future generations by simply planting trees.
Along with aiming for longevity, another of our core goals as a company is to further fund and contribute to conservation and preservation efforts of the natural world. We may be software company that is typically far removed from these types of efforts, but that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is that we are a group of humans that run a for-profit company and it is within our means to contribute to the reversal of climate change and the preservation of the natural world on this planet. This is a responsibility that we believe every company has and that every company should be contributing to with their resources, no matter how big or how small. The life of future generations depends on these efforts.
On this Arbor Day, April 30, 2021, we are introducing a new ritual for our team: mandated time off to plant trees.
Every person on our team will be asked to take the whole day away from their work and asked to plant a minimum of one tree, paid for by the company. For those team members unable to plant the tree(s) themselves, for whatever reason, a $100 donation will be made on their behalf to #TeamTrees, which will plant 1 tree for every dollar somewhere in the world.
At 28 people, the impact we can each have on the global re-planting effort may seem small, but it is significant. Imagine if even just 1% of the businesses in the world followed suit? Imagine if just 1% of the people in each country made the decision to put a tree in the ground even just once a year?
Will you join us in planting trees today? If not today, how about tomorrow?
P.S. did you know we recently planted 10,000 trees via #TeamTrees for the global tree replanting effort?