As part of our ongoing commitment to responsible travel and social development, Acacia partnered with Greenpop at the start of 2013 and last week we had a chance to meet the other companies who have joined hands with this amazing Cape Town based social enterprise.
Greenpop is a social business that is driving sustainable living through tree planting projects, green events, education, social media, voluntourism and activating people to start DOING!
On arrival we were handed our beautiful name tags made by Growing Paper – a Cape Town based company creating handmade paper products embedded with seeds that will germinate & grow. I can’t wait to plant my name tag – fresh rocket & basil for everyone in a few months!!
Stellar Wines & BOS ice tea were sponsoring the drinks and the gorgeous GreenPop ladies supplied a beautiful spread of fresh veggies and home made humus, so we were well taken care of from the get go. After a little meet & greet, Marleen Lammers & Misha Teasdale from Greenpop introduced us to their team & gave us an overview of what they do & where they are going. Having already planted over 23000 trees in forests, schools, underdeveloped areas in their short 2.5 years, they are just warming up.
Having recently started their new Trees For Travel partnerships in addition to their Pledge Partners, each of the companies in attendance has a chance to introduce themselves and tell us a bit about their partnership with GreenPop.
I was incredibly impressed and delighted with the range of companies who have already realised the importance of these kinds of project and are putting their time, effort and profits towards making our world a little better, one tree at a time! Please check out their website & put your support behind these lovely people and their businesses to allow them (and us!) to do even more.
http://www.greenpop.org/our-supporters/partners/
http://www.greenpop.org/our-supporters/treesfortravel/
Acacia’s project for August & September will see us plant a tree for every passenger booked on any of our tours during these months. We will host a tree planting day with Greenpop to get our hands dirty to plant what we hope will be over 700 trees! You can help by donating a tree through Acacia to Greenpop & if you happen to be in Cape Town on our plant day we would love for you to join us!
The guest speaker for the night was Andy Le May from Icologie – a company providing inspiration, education and engagement that motivates, drives and supports individuals and organisations to think and act more sustainably.
He shared with us some interesting and sometimes shocking information about how were are consuming our resources at a completely unsustainable way, how rapidly we are depleting our fish stocks, how quickly we are running out of oil and the terrible impact that social inequality, driven by profit greed, is destroying our communities and the brightness of future of our youth. He also reminded us that ultimately we have the power to change this.
We as consumers can choose the products which are being produced in sustainable ways, we can decide to only support organisation who act responsible towards our planet & the people they have contact with. Ultimately this will become the driver for other companies to change their ways because they necessarily want a piece of the pie – businesses and in the same sense, our governments, are only a reflection of what we allow them to be.
What an amazing evening – I would definitely recommend getting behind this great organisation – Greenpop – and supporting all of their business partners. Together we can make every day a little greener & a little happier.
Written by: Sophia Vos – Acacia Reservations