Team Trees, stylized as #TEAMTREES, is a collaborative fundraiser that raised 20 million

U.S. dollars The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

before the start of 2020 to plant 20 million trees. The initiative was started by American

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

MrBeast Jimmy Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), better known as MrBeast, is an American YouTube personality, credited with pioneering a genre of YouTube videos that centers on expensive stunts. His MrBeast YouTube channel had 112.2 million subscribers as ...

and

Mark Rober Mark B. Rober is an American YouTuber, engineer, inventor, and educator. He is known for his YouTube videos on popular science and do-it-yourself gadgets. Before YouTube, Rober was an engineer with NASA for nine years, where he spent seven y ...

, and was mostly supported by YouTubers. All donations go to the

Arbor Day Foundation The Arbor Day Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees. The Arbor Day Foundation has more than one million members and has planted more than 350 million trees in neighborhoods, communities ...

, a

tree planting Tree-planting is the process of transplanting tree seedlings, generally for forestry, land reclamation, or landscaping purpose. It differs from the transplantation of larger trees in arboriculture, and from the lower cost but slower and less re ...

organization that pledges to plant one tree for every U.S. dollar donated. The Arbor Day Foundation began planting in January 2020 and plans to end "no later than December 2022". It is estimated that 23 million trees would take up of land, absorb around 1.6 million tons of

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...

and remove 116 thousand tons of

pollutants A pollutant or novel entity is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effects, or adversely affects the usefulness of a resource. These can be both naturally forming (i.e. minerals or extracted compounds like oi ...

from the atmosphere. By November 2022, the project had raised more than $24 million, exceeding the fundraiser's goal to plant 20 million trees. As anticipated, more than 20 million trees have been planted.

Background

The idea started on May 24, 2019, when a fan suggested on

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

that

(Jimmy Donaldson) should plant 20 million trees to celebrate reaching 20 million subscribers on YouTube. The idea spread across

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

, and

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, mostly in the form of

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

s. The idea may have been related to the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires. American YouTuber, engineer, and inventor

partnered directly with Donaldson to launch the fundraiser. On October 25, 2019, Donaldson uploaded a YouTube video explaining his plan, which claimed the top spot on YouTube's trending page, and caused numerous YouTubers to join the movement. Notable YouTubers who have donated include

PewDiePie Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg ( , ; born 24 October 1989), better known as PewDiePie ( ), is a Swedes, Swedish YouTuber known for his Let's Play videos and comedic formatted videos and shows. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media co ...

Rhett & Link Rhett James McLaughlin (born October 11, 1977) and Charles Lincoln "Link" Neal III (born June 1, 1978) are an American comedy duo. Self-styled as "Internetainers" (a portmanteau of "Internet" and "entertainers"), they are known for creating and ...

Marshmello Christopher Comstock (born May 19, 1992), known professionally as Marshmello, is an American electronic music producer and DJ. His songs "Silence", "Wolves", "Friends", " Happier", and " Alone" have been certified multi-platinum in several ...

iJustine Justine Ezarik ( ; born March 20, 1984) is an American YouTuber. She is best known as iJustine, with over one billion views on her YouTube channel. She gained attention as a lifecaster who communicated directly with her millions of viewers on ...

, Marques Brownlee,

The Slow Mo Guys ''The Slow Mo Guys'' is a science and technology entertainment web series from Thame, England, United Kingdom created by Gavin Free, starring himself and Daniel Gruchy. It has been described as the biggest channel for slow motion videos on YouTu ...

Ninja A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enem ...

Simone Giertz Simone Luna Louise Söderlund Giertz ( ; ; born 1 November 1990) is a Swedish inventor, maker, robotics enthusiast, TV host, and professional YouTuber. She has also previously worked in mixed martial arts sports journalism and was an editor for ...

Jacksepticeye Seán William McLoughlin (born 7 February 1990), better known as Jacksepticeye, is an Irish YouTuber, best known for his vlogs and comedic Let's Play series. , his channel has over 15.7 billion views and 28.9 million subscribers, and is the mo ...

, Smarter Every Day,

Simply Nailogical Cristine Raquel Rotenberg (born October 17, 1988) is a Canadian YouTuber. Primarily known for her nail art videos, she ran the YouTube channel Simply Nailogical from 2014 to 2022, which has amassed over 7 million subscribers. In addition to her ...

The King of Random TKOR (formerly known as The King of Random) is a YouTube channel created by Grant Thompson that conducts DIY projects and experiments, often involving large amounts of a single item. Thompson created the channel in 2012 and operated it until hi ...

Dude Perfect Dude Perfect (DP) is an American sports and comedy group headquartered in Frisco, Texas. The group consists of Tyler "TT" Toney, twins Cory and Coby Cotton, Garrett "Purple Hoser" Hilbert, and Cody "Tall Guy" Jones, all of whom are former colleg ...

The Try Guys ''The Try Guys'' is an American online entertainment group and media production company which produces content for their YouTube channel. The group was founded by Keith Habersberger, Ned Fulmer, Zach Kornfeld, and Eugene Lee Yang. The Try Guys ...

Alan Becker Alan Becker (born May 18, 1989) is an American online animator, YouTube personality and artist, best known for creating the ''Animator vs. Animation'' web series, its shorts (both ''Animator vs. Animation Shorts''Commonly abbreviated as ''AvA ...

Alan Walker Alan Olav Walker (born 24 August 1997) is a British-born Norwegian music producer and DJ primarily known for the critically acclaimed single " Faded" (2015), which was certified platinum in 14 countries. He has also made several songs including ...

TheOdd1sOut Robert James Rallison (born May 14, 1996), known online as TheOdd1sOut, is an American cartoonist, YouTuber, animator, author, and voice actor. He is known for producing storytime animations on his YouTube channel and being the co-creator and c ...

Linus Tech Tips Linus Gabriel Sebastian (born August 20, 1986) is a Canadian YouTuber. Sebastian is best known for creating and hosting YouTube channels that cover technology, especially ''Linus Tech Tips'' (LTT)''.'' His channels have a combined subscriber ...

Jeffree Star Jeffree Star (born Jeffrey Lynn Steininger Jr., November 15, 1985) is an American YouTuber, makeup artist, and former singer-songwriter. He is the founder and owner of Jeffree Star Cosmetics. In 2009, Star released a studio album, ''Beauty Kill ...

MinuteEarth, and

Jaiden Animations Jaiden Dittfach (born September 27, 1997), known online as Jaiden Animations, is an American YouTuber and animator, known for her story-time animations. Her videos explore a variety of topics, spanning from her experiences to personal stories. ...

. Entrepreneurs such as

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...

Tobias Lütke Tobias "Tobi" Lütke is the billionaire founder and CEO of Shopify, an e-commerce company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He has been part of the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and has created open source libraries such as Active M ...

Marc Benioff Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, an enterprise cloud computing company. In September 2018, Benioff acquired ''Time''. ...

Susan Wojcicki Susan Diane Wojcicki ( ; born July 5, 1968) is a Polish-American business executive who is the CEO of YouTube. Her net worth was estimated at $765 million in 2022. Wojcicki has worked in the technology industry for over 20 years. She became invol ...

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American Internet entrepreneur and programmer who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc., as well as a co-founder and the CEO and chairperson of Block, Inc., the developer of the Squar ...

, and

Jean-Michel Lemieux Jean-Michel Lemieux is the former chief technology officer of Shopify. Education and career Lemieux received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Ottawa. Prior to becoming chief technology officer at Shopify, Lemieux was the Sen ...

have also donated and promoted the campaign. The trees will be planted "in a variety of forests on public and private lands in areas of great need" starting in January 2020. The goal is to have them planted "no later than December 2022".

Responses

Many YouTubers created content to capitalize on the growing trend of Team Trees; despite the

reaching out to only a few hundred creators, Team Trees is now featured in over 80,000 videos from over 4200 global creators. Across Instagram and Twitter over 556,001 posts have garnered more than 4.6 billion views. Creators were able to uniquely inspire their audience to become donors and supporters of Team Trees through their relationships with their fans. In addition to

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

influencers An Internet celebrity (also known as a social media influencer, social media personality, internet personality, or simply influencer) is a celebrity who has acquired or developed their fame and notability through the Internet. The rise of social m ...

, large corporations made large donations including

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

, EA,

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...

(

Shopify Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online ret ...

(CEO

and CTO

) and Tesla (

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

made a documentary called ''#TeamTrees'' about the campaign which aired on December 3, 2019, coupled with a donation of USD $100,203 the next day.

Planting projects

Planting locations of Team Trees include:

Criticism

Eike Lüdeling, the department head of horticultural sciences at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

, stated, "It turns out that many of these seedlings, if you don't do this well or if people do it who don’t really care about those trees, then they all just die quickly. Sometimes it’s probably a better idea to plant fewer trees and really take care of them." Danny Cohn, the director of public relations for the

, addressed these concerns in saying that "the partners who work with the organization are all required to have plans to help their trees thrive."

Legacy

On October 29, 2021,

and

teamed up again to launch

Team Seas Team Seas, stylized as #TeamSeas, is an international collaborative fundraiser that was started by YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober as a follow up to Team Trees. The fundraiser succeeded in raising over 33 million United States dollar, U.S. doll ...

, a successor to the project that aimed to help clean up

marine debris Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has deliberately or accidentally been released in a sea or ocean. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and on coastlines, frequently washing ...

. As with the Team Trees campaign, many influencers had also joined in spreading the message to help the project be a success. While the project is international,

and

had traveled to the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

to help clean up there and address issues with trash collection in underdeveloped and underserved areas.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.teamtrees.org/ 2019 in Internet culture Hashtags Fundraising events Forestry initiatives Internet activism Charity fundraisers