Features
August’s top 10 green crowdfunding projects
It’s that time again. We’ve rounded up our favourite new crowdfunding projects of the month that focus on sustainability issues.
Crowdfunding allows ambitious individuals to promote their cause to like-minded people, and gain financial backing for projects that can range from conservation projects and social welfare programmes to films and art shows.
“Why are we so rubbish at reuse?”, asks the Give It For Good campaign. Its big idea is to create a website where users can simply type in what they want to give away – say, an old TV – and enter their location and be told about charities or individuals nearby who would be interested in taking it off their hands. Marvellous.
What is a bloomtrigger? The pioneers behind the second project in our list are on hand to helpfully explain. They say it is “a system that has been created to bring simple, individual actions together, which collectively mushrooms causing a positive movement to happen”. They invite individuals, businesses and schools to pledge ‘blooms’, with each bloom equivalent to 50p sufficient to protect 50 square metres of Peruvian rainforest.
3. Self build affordable eco-homes
The Land Society, a not-for-profit community interest company, needs £20,000 to build an innovative demonstration eco-house to teach young people or families who cannot afford rising house prices how they can build one themselves – affordably.
4. Refutrees: Sustainable Development, One Small Enterprise At A Time
This innovative project aims to help Palestinian refugee communities in the West Bank and Lebanon to work towards a more sustainable future while achieving their socio-economic and human rights.
5. Post-Landfill Action Network: A Student-led, Zero-waste Campus Movement
PLAN’s plan, so to speak, is to provide start-up funding, leadership training, educational resources and discounts to US college students to help launch self-sustaining, student-led waste reduction programs in campus communities.
6. The Columbian Coffee Company
Mirror mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Not Fairtrade, if the Columbian Coffee Company have anything to do with it. This London-based social enterprise aims to develop an ethical coffee brand than runs to guidelines even fairer than Fairtrade, and donates all its profits to projects working with vulnerable communities in Colombia.
7. Sea Turtle Conservation in Veracruz, Mexico
The plight of turtles is a desperate one. The Yepez family has been protecting sea turtles on the coast of Veracruz, Mexico, since 1967 and need $5,000 for equipment and staff to protect over 1,000 female turtles who will be visiting their beach during this year’s mating season.
8. Rhino Conservation, Expansion Ranges and Protection Project
Speaking of desperate plights, plights don’t get much more desperate than that of the rhino. This project seeks to protect rhinos in Botswana who are still falling victim to illegal poaching.
9. CELT Environmental Skills Centre
This centre, based in County Clare, Ireland, trains visitors in agroforestry and develops wildlife biodiversity trails, provide guided walks focusing on nature conservation and run a native ‘tree nursery’.
Ukalene Productions is looking for just over $26,000 to help it make a documentary film about Mount Namuli, Mozambique’s second highest mountain, in order to help further the science around its conservation.
Further reading:
July’s top 10 green crowdfunding projects
June’s top 10 green crowdfunding projects