We always had the goal to be a company that was environmentally responsible and did some good. It's a tricky balance. if the company isn't financially viable, it can't exist and so can't do any good. And trying to start a business is pretty hard full stop.
We set out on a route to be as careful as possible in terms of what our ingredients are, sourcing them from specific co-operatives where we could etc. However, with the impact of climate change so viscerally evident in our mountain home, we quickly decided this was not enough. We needed to make an immediate positive impact, not simply 'reduce the damage we cause', or 'wait until we could afford it'.
Spending ten or so years in Chamonix, watching glaciers, formed over a geological time scale, visibly vanish season to season, month to month was pretty galling. It probably started from a selfish point of view of ' oh no, these cool ski lines are disappearing' it has progressed far beyond that. This BBC article, summarising the UN climate change report lays out the numbers in an alarming way. It also makes it starkly clear that regulation and global political leadership has failed to halt any of this, and, if left unchecked, the world we all die in, will be in many ways unrecognisable to the world we were born into. I don't know why that article, or at that time, but perhaps it is because causing a million species to become completely extinct, because of us, is seriously full on.
We set up Hard Bar to try and use it to do some good, so we might as well get on with it. 'Be the change' even. Clearly us planting trees, even if it's thousands, or one day millions of trees, won't 'save the world' by itself. But it might help, and with a bit of luck is just the start of what we could do.
A tree absorbs about 1 ton of carbon dioxide over 40 years. That’s over 20,000 times more than emitted in producing one Hard Bar. It’s 100 more times even in the first years, when the trees are younger, smaller and absorb less CO2.
The trees are planted to form forest gardens. This restores deforested areas. It stops further deforestation. It reduces hunger and lessens poverty in the surrounding communities. It increases biodiversity in place of mono crop farming and improves soil health (another carbon-dioxide sink).
Currently, we are doing this through our non-profit partner, Trees for the Future. Visit www.trees.org, if you want to dig into the details. Trees for the Future is a 1% for the Planet partner non-profit. They’ve been checked out by the best in the business and pass the test. Their work is focused in central Africa, as that is where they are able to have the largest impact.
Because Hard Bar plants a tree for every bar you buy, we are growing to be a whole lot more than carbon neutral. We're becoming carbon negative.
Hard Bar is also a proud member of 1% for the Planet. The Hard Bar commitment to plant a tree per bar sold goes above and beyond 1%. It’s more like ten times that. And we are happy with that. Because if we have to choose between more profits or the planet, we pick the planet every time.
Join us in the fight. Use your purchasing power to benefit the environment and help lead the charge against climate change.
A tree absorbs about 1 ton of carbon dioxide over 40 years. That’s over 20,000 times more than emitted in producing one Hard Bar. It’s 100 more times even in the first years, when the trees are younger, smaller and absorb less CO2.
The trees are planted to form forest gardens. This restores deforested areas. It stops further deforestation. It reduces hunger and lessens poverty in the surrounding communities. It increases biodiversity in place of mono crop farming and improves soil health (another carbon-dioxide sink).
Currently, we are doing this through our non-profit partner, Trees for the Future. Visit www.trees.org, if you want to dig into the details. Trees for the Future is a 1% for the Planet partner non-profit. They’ve been checked out by the best in the business and pass the test. Their work is focused in central Africa, as that is where they are able to have the largest impact.
Because Hard Bar plants a tree for every bar you buy, we are growing to be a whole lot more than carbon neutral. We're becoming carbon negative.
Hard Bar is also a proud member of 1% for the Planet. The Hard Bar commitment to plant a tree per bar sold goes above and beyond 1%. It’s more like ten times that. And we are happy with that. Because if we have to choose between more profits or the planet, we pick the planet every time.
Join us in the fight. Use your purchasing power to benefit the environment and help lead the charge against climate change.
PS - We had a lot of help in getting started on this initiative from our friends at the Bootlab in Meribel & Courchevel, who also run the 3 valleys based non-profit One Tree at a Time, https://onetreeatatime.fr/. Since starting this initiative, several other businesses have been in touch to ask how we are doing this. We have helped them out, and subsequently have started incorporating tree planting into their business model. Amen to that.