We’re excited to announce that the Hazel team is presenting our startup at TechCrunch Disrupt next month! Out of thousands of applicants, we were one of a handful chosen to present, and we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity!
TechCrunch Disrupt has been the launching pad for such tech titans as Dropbox, Mint and Fitbit — and we’re excited to follow in their footsteps!
Hazel was just chosen by the Filecoin Foundation for a grant to explore integrating the Filecoin platform into Hazel!
We’re excited about this cool opportunity and can’t wait to start investigating different ways to incorporate Filecoin into Hazel. From transparent impact reporting to public carbon accounting, we think there’s a lot of ways that Hazel & Filecoin can work together. Filecoin has made a major commitment to environmental sustainability through their Filecoin Green work, and we’re excited to work with them on our climate-change impact work.
What exactly is the integration going to look like — and what good can we do together? That’s what we’re going to figure out. Stay tuned!
Is there something that you’d like to see us investigate? DM us and let us know!
Take a look at Hazel’s first afforestation project!
Afforestation is a specific way to combat climate change–at its most simple, it’s planting a new forest in a place where trees hadn’t previously grown. This project in Uruguay, however, is so much more than that–and that’s why we’re so excited to add it into the Hazel portfolio!
This project is taking 52,000+ acres of degraded grazing land and turning it into a valuable forest resource for the local community. The land has been used for cattle grazing for generations, and in the past few decades, it has been over-grazed and damaged. Too many cattle have depleted the soils, caused increased erosion, damaged the soil quality and harmed the local watershed.
This project will reverse that damage by creating a lush, productive forest–expanding the local forest ecosystem, repairing the damage caused by grazing and improving local water and soil qualities, all while permanently capturing millions of tonnes of carbon in the process!
The forest will be a mix of pines and hardwoods, managed according to the sustainable forest management best practices as set forth by the Forest Stewardship Council. Critically, this new forest will be an economic asset to the local community–providing new jobs and opportunities in forestry for the people living in the area and giving them an incentive to protect and enhance the new ecosystem.
In total, the project is expected to capture more than 7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, while expanding local biodiversity, creating new economic opportunities and expanding educational opportunities in the local area. Given the size of the project, this project will also serve as a model for other, similar projects in the area–helping demonstrate how enhanced sustainability can be economically advantageous to the community too.
Afforestation, when done in a way that is sustainable and in concert with the economic interests of the local community, can be a significant component in society’s broader fight against climate change. We’re very excited to have the opportunity to work with this project–with your help, we can make it a success!
We’re excited to announce our latest forestry project–planting millions of new trees in Central and Southern Kenya!
Tree planting is a classic approach to removing carbon from the atmosphere–one that we’re happy to include in our portfolio of projects. The process couldn’t be more simple: As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, turn the carbon into wood, then respire oxygen.
Tree planting has to be done correctly though–successful tree plantings need on-going care and maintenance to ensure that the trees grow to maturity. Critically, planting also has to be done with the support of the local community to protect the newly planted forests for the long-haul. The impact of the trees is undone if they die before reaching their full size, or if someone cuts them down.
That’s why we’re so excited to offer this project, run by The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST). TIST works with local smallhold farmers to teach them about the economic value of trees and how to care for them correctly. By ensuring that trees are an economic benefit to the local community, TIST creates an environment where trees are valued, protected and cared for as a critical local asset–in addition to being of benefit to the planet! We think this is a great approach to reforestation projects, and we’re excited to support their work in Kenya through Hazel!
Currently, more than 94,000 farmers in Kenya are working with TIST–an incredible local base of support! These farmers form 13,800 Small Groups, which work together to oversee and support their mutual planting efforts.
The results have already been impressive! Already this project is responsible for almost 13,000,000 new tress–and have planted recently more than 5,600,000 seedlings. Each of these trees, at maturity, will capture multiple tonnes of carbon, directly removing the carbon from the atmosphere that causes climate change. It’s a huge impact!
In addition to the impact on climate change and the economic benefit, the trees being planted have a significant impact on the local environment–from helping prevent erosion and runoff during the rainy seasons to improving the soil quality by generating leaf litter (and in some cases, directly fixing nitrogen into the soil).
By supporting this project with Hazel, you’ll enable this project to:
Sequester more than 2,800 tonnes of carbon annually
Capture atmospheric carbon in newly planted forests
Provide an economic opportunity for local farmers (through fruit, nut and other resource harvesting)
Improve local soil quality and biodiversity
Reforestation (replanting trees where they once grew) and afforestation (growing new trees in new locations) are significant nature-based solutions for climate change. We’ve been looking for a project that met our standards for impact while also having an impact on the local community, and we found it in this project.
We’re excited to add this project to our portfolio of projects in Hazel–we hope it’s one of your favorites too!
We’re exactly one week out from Earth Day, April 22, 2022! As a company devoted to combating climate change, there’s obviously few holidays on the calendar bigger than Earth Day for us–and this year, we want to celebrate by doing something really cool!
First, what’s bigger than just a day? Making it a week! So this year, we’re celebrating Earth Week!
And to celebrate Earth Week, we’re launching a special promotion & challenge for our users:
Hazel 2022 Earth Week Promotion
First, anyone who makes a purchase in Hazel this week–any purchase, supporting any project, at any amount–automatically will be emailed a unique reward code.
What’s the code do? We’ll get to that.
Second, the user who makes the largest purchase during Earth Week will be named “Official Earth Week 2022 Big Kahuna” and get a second unique code.
What’s that code do? We’ll get to that too.
What’s the code do?
OK, let’s get to that.
Your unique, one-of-a-kind code–whether just as an Earth Week participant or as the Big Kahuna–will enable you to receive a unique, one-of-a-kind digital asset in the upcoming Hazelverse web3 experience. This unique asset will be a way for you to customize your experience and show off that you were active in the Hazelverse from Day Zero.
The only way to get this asset from us will be to have a redemption code. If you don’t buy next week, you’ll miss out on ever earning this asset.
Would it have been cool to have the very first page on Facebook, or the email address “bob@gmail.com” (assuming your name is Bob)? You bet it would have been. This is your chance to be on board from prelaunch of something that’s going to be even cooler.
Wait, it’s a digital… what?
If you’re following us on Twitter, you’ll know some of our plans for the Hazelverse. In this new experience, you’ll be given an island of land in the Hazelverse that you need to protect from climate change.
The digital asset you’ll get for participating in our Earth Week promotion will be something that you can add to your island to customize it. And you’ll be one of a handful of users who have the customization–or, if you’re the Kahuna, the only one.
Open Hazel & signup for an account (or just sign in)
Tap “Impact” and select the type of climate impact you want to make
Want to eliminate the negative climate impact of your driving? Pick “Supplemental” and a vehicle size under “Gasoline Usage”
Want to eliminate the negative climate impact of a recent flight? Pick “Supplemental” and a flight time under “Air Travel”
Just want to capture the amount of carbon emissions that is typical for most people each month? Select “Baseline” and then your impact level
That’s it! We’ll email you your unique code shortly after your purchase!
Best of all, like any Hazel purchase, not only are you funding critical carbon removal efforts but you’re also earning Hazelcoins and status on your dashboard–check out your “Me” tab to see!
How Do I Know If I’ve Reached Ultimate Kahuna-ness?
(Or if I’ve gotten bumped from my perch?)
When we email you your code, we’ll tell you if you’re currently in the lead or not. All week we’ll be publishing leaderboards to LinkedIn and Instagram (using buyers’ initials to respect privacy) so you can track where you stand. Make sure to follow to see where you stand!
(And of course, you can always just email us and ask)
Don’t let this opportunity for Kahuna-immortality slip by!
Special Atlanta Green Market Festival Information
We’re excited to partner with the Atlanta Green Market Festival on 4/23 to be their preferred carbon removal partner. If you’re going to the market, you’re someone who values environmental action, and we know you’ll want to help do your part to help the climate.
All users who make a climate impact through Hazel during the festival will get an Earth Week code for their participation. In addition, we’ll be aggregating the amount of impact all festival goers make on 4/23 and reporting out through the festival’s organizers to all attendees.
Let’s make this year’s Green Market Festival not only fun & educational, but a positive impact on the climate!
We’re excited about Earth Week, and we hope you are too! Download Hazel. Followus onsocial media. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated. And let’s make a huge impact during Earth Week this year!
We’re excited to announce our latest forestry project: 2,500 Acres in Middlebury, Vermont! This is the first domestic US project that we’ve worked with, and we couldn’t be more excited–in addition to being a critical mixed hardwood habitat, it’s also an opportunity to support the environmental efforts of Middlebury College, one of the nation’s oldest liberal arts institutions, as they go carbon neutral across their entire campus.
This project is a mix of reforestation and improved forestry management–it’s a mix of planting new trees, protecting the existing trees, and protecting the entire forest from diseases and invasive species. If you’re looking for a unique way to support carbon removal, higher education, and protect a classic New England ecosystem, this is it!
We learned about this project initially through its association with Middlebury College. The college has owned–and, since the 1920s commercially harvested lumber from–this forest (in fact, many of the buildings on campus are built with timber from this forest tract). When the school committed to going carbon neutral in 2016, the forest became an integral part of the plan–by prohibiting commercial logging, the school could ensure additional carbon capture through the forest’s growth each year. Plus, by reforesting sections that had previously been harvested, newly planted trees could capture additional carbon–above and beyond what the carbon needs of the school are.
Each year, Middlebury College retains and retires the rights to some of the carbon that the tract has captured to meet their Net Zero goals. The forest captures more carbon than the school produces, however, and these additional tonnes of carbon are what we’re able to purchase through this partnership–directly supporting the on-going health of the forest and its natural work of removing carbon from the air.
We also like this project because, unlike some reforestation projects in other parts of the world, the legal system in the US ensures that the conservation commitments that the school signed to protect the forest are iron-clad, and issues of on-going maintenance and monitoring of the forest are greatly reduced.
Plus: It’s fun to support a project in our own backyard! (Relatively speaking, of course….)
By supporting this project with Hazel, you’ll enable this project to:
Sequester more than 19,000 tonnes of carbon annually
Increase the sequestration potential of this forest by adopting techniques that increase the biodiversity of the forest
Provide an educational resource for students, faculty and the local community
Provide recreational opportunities for the local community
Create habitat for local fox, coyotes, moose, fisher cats, turkey and black bear
Protect freshwater river sources for the surrounding watershed, including the East Middlebury River
Reforestation–planting new forests that were once harvested–is a significant method for removing carbon from the atmosphere. We’re excited to add this forestry project into the mix and work with you to support it!
You know we’ve focused since our inception on providing the highest quality carbon removal offsets, while maximizing the impact you as a user get for every dollar spent on our platform.
Unfortunately, to maintain the same high-quality carbon removal offsets we’ve provided in the past, we’re being forced to pay much higher prices than we were just months ago–in some cases, the costs of the carbon removal offsets we buy have gone up by as much as 50%!
As a result of our higher costs, you’ll see higher prices in Hazel starting today. We anticipate this being the only price increase we’ll need to do for 2022, but that will depend on how the market for the rest of the year evolves.
If you’re on a subscription with us:
Hazel provides the option to select “Monthly Purchase” at checkout to make your purchase a monthly subscription. If you’re on a subscription plan like this, we will not be raising your prices. You made a commitment to support climate action through Hazel, and we want to honor your commitment–even though it means we’ll be losing money on it. (Note that any new subscriptions will be at the new pricing).
Additional details about this change:
First, we didn’t want to deviate from the high-quality carbon removal offsets we’ve been offering. One of the things that makes Hazel unique is that, unlike many sources, we’re 100% focused on supporting projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere. Many carbon offset projects are focused on avoidance–effectively “pay me or I’ll pollute”–and these types of offsets are much cheaper.
While we think there’s a role for those projects, with Hazel we wanted to focus instead on selling offsets that come from actual capture and removal of carbon from the atmosphere, whether by:
Conservation Efforts: Where the preserved ecosystems sequester additional carbon every year;
Reforestation: Where newly planted trees capture and store carbon;
Regenerative Farming: Where a change in farming practices results in fields that capture and store additional carbon;
Technology & Other: Where engineered or other cutting-edge approaches are used to capture carbon.
These projects are in the most demand, however, and are uniformly raising prices, which impacts our business.
In the future, this may mean that our project mix, for users who pick “Support All Projects” in Hazel, may change. Although prices are rising everywhere, not all projects are rising at the same rate or by the same amount. There may be an opportunity to mix lower-priced removal projects with higher priced ones so that the average price remains low–while still supporting multiple projects. Right now, users who pick “Support All Projects” in Hazel get an equal amount of all of our projects–changing this mix may enable us to support pricier solutions in the future. (Obviously if you pick a specific project to support, 100% of your support goes to that project). Stay tuned!
In future weeks, we may introduce new Impact product options in Hazel at lower price points. While these will also represent a smaller amount of carbon captured, we want to provide an option for users that cannot afford to fund a larger impact on the climate.
We’ll also be raising the amount of Hazel Coins you receive to reflect our new prices. Why does that matter? It doesn’t… yet. But trust me, you’re going to want as many Hazel Coins as you can get in your account in a few weeks…
Finally…
I know we probably could have raised prices and not said anything, and our new prices would have gone largely unnoticed. That would have been a jerky move though, and we’re committed to being better people, and a better business, than that. We wanted to be as transparent with you as possible because that’s the right thing to do. We know higher prices aren’t something anyone wants to hear, but we hope you’ll understand our need to change our prices. –Ed
A big congratulations to the latest supporter for our Impact Challenge! If you want your own photo of Ed hugging a tree, there is still time to join!
Here is how to get started:
1. Open the Hazel app 2. Go to "Impact" 3. Under Baseline, choose "150% Impact Level" 4. Check out! pic.twitter.com/4ZORv8h7rY
— Hazel | Climate Change Mobile App (@hazelclimateapp) January 25, 2022
We got new users involved. We got people excited about Hazel.
And best of all, we had a HUGE impact on climate change!
Consider this: With your hard work during our challenge, we collectively removed enough carbon from the atmosphere to:
Remove 18,000 miles driven by a Chevy Suburban! That’s driving your Suburban from Helsinki Finland to Cape Town South — and back!
Or, if you’re more fuel efficient, we removed 38,000 miles driven by a Honda Accord. That’s the equivalent of going from Lisbon Portugal to Magadan Russian–across all of Europe and Asia–FOUR TIMES.
Air travel more your thing?
We eliminated 3 roundtrips from New York to Tokyo — or two trips from London to Sydney, Australia.
All that travel seem tiring? (Can’t imagine driving across Siberia in a Honda is much fun — particularly in the winter)
Then consider this: We also removed the equivalent amount of carbon generated from heating 36 homes in an average snowy climate with natural gas for a month.
The weather outside is frightful…
If you’re one of the many who took part in the campaign, be proud of the impact you had! If we all do just a little bit, it adds up dramatically. If you missed the opportunity to join in, it’s never too late to get started — download Hazel on iOS or Android to get started!
Thanks everyone for helping start 2022 on the right path!
PS — We also HAVE A WINNER of our Easter Egg challenge! More on that later…
“I’m panicked about climate change. I get the science, I understand what’s happening around us–but government, businesses… no one is doing anything! I don’t understand how people think this is all magically just going to be OK!”
Sound familiar?
In the past year, we’ve talked to hundreds of you about climate change. What we’ve heard is, honestly, really depressing:
You’re worried about the future for you and your kids.
You’re avoiding the news because each climate story just gets worse and worse, and you feel powerless to fix it.
You’re anxious that you’re not doing everything you can do to help the future of the planet, but you don’t see solutions that can have a real impact.
You’re frustrated. Really, really frustrated, because our elected leaders and those leading the business community aren’t doing enough to protect our future.
We get it. We’re worried and frustrated too. So we’re taking action on climate change. We built Hazel to help solve it.
Hazel is a simple way for you to fight climate change by supporting leading carbon-removal projects around the world. We designed it to be easy and fun: No lengthy calculators that are too complicated to use. No need to become a part-time scientist to understand how to take action. Hazel makes it simple to make a positive impact on the climate.
Also, critically, Hazel is guilt free.
For years, companies that have sold carbon offsets to consumers have focused on personal guilt. They force you through some calculator that spits out a number to show you exactly how awful a human being you are (called your “carbon footprint”). Once you’ve calculated just how awful you are, they then use that figure as a bludgeon to guilt you into purchasing offsets from them to offset that amount of carbon. The entire focus is on making you feel as guilty and bad about yourself as possible, so they can then sell you a solution.
We think that’s awful.
Look, you’ve got enough in your life trying to make you feel bad. If you’ve come to Hazel to see how you can help solve climate change, you’re one of the good people! Why should we try to make you feel guilty about wanting to help? We don’t think that makes any sense. Instead, we designed Hazel to celebrate any amount of impact you have on the climate. Because if you use Hazel–at any level–you’re part of the solution, and you should feel great about playing a role in fixing our climate crisis!
We’re proud to announce that Hazel is now available on both the App Store and Google Play. In coming weeks, we’ll be adding new carbon-removal partners, additional features and a fun interactive experience as a reward for making an impact with Hazel. We’re excited to have you joining us on our journey towards having a giant climate impact.
We all have an enormous task in front of us to clean up the mess we’ve made, draw down global carbon levels and start reversing climate change. But, we at Hazel believe that there is still time to fix the climate before our world is irreparably changed. We know that if we all work together and do a small part, we can collectively have a massive impact.
We’re worried and frustrated about climate change too, but we cared enough to build Hazel. We hope you care enough to use it. Together, we can start reversing climate change.
I’m excited to announce the new brand name for our climate-change app: Hazel!
For those of you who’ve been with us through the alpha and beta testing phases, you know that we started life as “Arbor”. We liked this name fine: Trees… climate change… it seemed like a fit, but it was a little generic. More importantly, once we really got a sense for who our users were likely to be and what emotional impact we wanted to have with them, “Arbor” was no longer a perfect fit.
So we went back to the drawing board, and after multiple weeks’ worth of research, brainstorming, testing and refinement, we landed at Hazel. We’re excited about the name, and we hope you love it as much as we do!
So why Hazel?
First, there aren’t a lot of Hazel products or other preconceptions about the word that anyone has, from what we learned, which is great–it means we can build a brand from scratch without needing to deal with preconceptions or having other products come to mind.
As a word, Hazel evokes nature and woodlands (Hazel trees, Hazelnuts), and also an Earthy green color that we liked. In Celtic lore, Hazel trees represented wisdom and grew in the center of the Otherworld–for ages, cutting down a Hazel was illegal in both Ireland and Scotland. In both Norse and Greek mythology, Hazel trees represented knowledge. Since we hope to introduce people to a simple way to have a climate impact, the wisdom & knowledge association made sense.
More critically though, Hazel hit the emotional resonance with users in our testing that we were aiming for. At its core, our app is about making people feel calmer and more reassured about climate change–because if we all put in a little bit of effort, we really can be a force for global change and make things better! In our testing, Hazel scored very high among our target users as a name that made them feel calm and relaxed–exactly the reaction we’re hoping for.
If you participated in any of our brainstorming or name feedback surveys, thank you! Your thoughts and reactions had a direct role in helping us choose our new brand. For everyone, we hope that you love our new brand as much as we do.
We look forward to working with you to make it a brand and product that you love.
