March 20, 2020 |

Plant trees every time you hike, walk or run!

We are proud to announce our #GO4Trees Challenge in cooperation with One Tree Planted. Starting today, March 21st, and in celebration of the International Day of Forests, we want to invite you to join our movement to plant 100,000 trees together!

In these times of fear and isolation, we are launching a campaign of hope and solidarity. Now more than ever is an important time to take care of your health, digitally connect with sweaty changemakers worldwide, and make a positive impact on the planet we share!

How does it work?

It’s very simple. Download the atlasGO app and join the #GO4Trees challenge and all of your runs, walks, and hikes will plant trees! You can track or log your activities directly on atlasGO. As we want to build a community around our movement, the application supports various features such as posting sweaty selfies, supporting each other with high-fives and comments, and competing as individuals or with teams. The application is free for you to use, and the trees you plant with your activities are sponsored by our partners.

running people cartoons in a park

Why trees?

We are planting trees because “trees help clean the air we breathe, filter the water we drink and provide habitat to over 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Forests provide jobs to over 1.6 billion people, absorb harmful carbon from the atmosphere, and are key ingredients in 25% of all medicines.” – One Tree Planted.

We believe that planting trees only is the start of what everyone needs to do to work on destructive forces such as climate change, growing inequality, and global conflicts.

How to Support an Environmental Cause with Your Employees

Check out some facts about the forests that grow on Earth and how important they are for any species inhabiting our beautiful planet:

– The largest area of forest in the tropics remains the Amazon Basin, amounting to 81.5 million acres

– The Amazon forest produces about 20% of the earth’s oxygen

– More than 25% of the medicines we use originate in rainforests plants

– As of today, more than 300 million people still live in a forest

– Forests cover 30 percent or about 4 billion hectares of the Earth’s land

– 70% of all animals live in our forests

– “Forest Therapy” is a common therapy in Japan to fight depression and anxiety

A more unfortunate fact is that about 80% of the Earth’s original forests have been cleared or destroyed. 

Forest with a ray of sun

One of the goals of our movement is to close the value-awareness-action gap we observe in ourselves and others. We believe that most people all over the world agree on the issues we are facing but are paralyzed by their sheer magnitude and all the negative stories we hear about them daily. With atlasGO, we want you to make a first step (literally) to have a small impact on your daily exercise. Along the way, you will learn many fun facts and useful tips on how to make little changes to your life that, summed up, will make a big impact. As an example, did you know that it can make a huge difference for your Co2 footprint if you do your laundry over lunchtime or at night? Or that your water heater probably is the appliance that uses the most energy in your household? And that there are easy ways to address such small behavioral changes without making your life miserable, even more as we’re living most of our lives confined in a small space right now?

So let’s take care of ourselves, our communities, and the environment, and let’s start with planting trees while we exercise our bodies to boost our immune system! Welcome to the community of sweaty changemakers, and thank you for joining the movement. We’re eager to see where this road leads us to! 

girl standing on a tree with trees around her

The #GO4Trees Challenge is only possible thanks to corporate partners who sponsor our community to be active and plant trees. If you are interested in sponsoring our community, engaging your employees, customers, and make an impact, please reach out to thomas@atlasgo.org.

trees looked down to up

About One Tree Planted

One Tree Planted is a 501C3 non-profit environmental charity with a focus on global reforestation. They work with amazing partners in North America, South America, Asia, and Africa to get trees in the ground and restore forests after fires and floods, create jobs, build communities, and protect habitat for biodiversity. The impact of the #GO4Trees Challenge will benefit California, a state that has been struggling with wildfires and a shortage in the water supply. Both issues can be addressed with improved forest resilience, a concrete measure of the project that our Challenge will support.

man planting trees

#GO4Trees & COVID-19

We are monitoring the situation of the current COVID-19 pandemic closely. We believe that our #GO4Trees Challenge will help our users to feel a sense of belonging during these unprecedented times, using the means of technology to form a digital community to help our planet and to spread positivity. As it is proven that regular exercise has a positive impact on the immune system, we hope we can have a positive impact on keeping our users fit and healthy. However, we suggest avoiding crowded spaces such as gyms and focusing on outdoor activities (if not prohibited by your local government), and preferably workout on your own. We also urge our users to strictly follow all country-specific regulations, rules, and laws issued by organizations and government agencies such as the WHO and CDC. 

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