3,000,000 Trees Planted and counting.
After leaving the Royal Navy early in 2000, Andy Steel set off on a journey that would see him and his family relocating to Sri Lanka to undertake employment in the power sector. While working in an industry that was polluting the atmosphere an opportunity arose to change sectors, relocate and move into the forestry industry in 2006.
Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth) & Leonardo DiCaprio were also starting to make noises about climate change. Andy now working for a forestry company believed that they could do more to support the climate change agenda and the company's triple-bottom-line principles and came up with the idea of a charity focusing on reforestation. Unfortunately, the board didn’t necessarily agree but the concept of the Foundation was born.
In April of 2006, Andy was part of the team that won the XLResults Foundation (XLRF) Entrepreneurs Business School in Bali. At a subsequent meeting with XL’s FounderRoger Hamilton, the organisation agreed to support the costs to kick start the charity and the website to offer people the chance to donate funds to offset their emissions via planting trees.
It was during the website build that Nick Greenwood of 4B Networks asked Andy what the charity was to be called. Having no real idea at the time Nick said, “Well we are asking people to plant a tree today.” The name stuck and the charity was founded initially in theUK during 2006 before being recognised as a foundation in Thailand three years later.
The XLRF funds allowed Chris Doherty & Neil Smith to be able to work full-time on the PATT project and helped build the platform that we see today.
On the 27th May 2006 in Thailand, a group of family and friends took a 7-hour minibus journey to Sangklaburi, in the Kanchanaburi province to carry out our first tree-planting project. We partnered with a local organisation, Baan Unrak School and Children’s Home. Dave Rogers (XLRF) also joined the trip bringing along his son. Andy’s kids, Ollie and Lauryn (2 & 5 years old at the time) joined that first trip and remain involved with the foundation’s activities to date.
The ‘Baan Unrak Forest and Nursery Project’ was supporting tree planting in rural Thailand and with the support of XL Results Foundation Magazine, we supplied 500 fruit and teak trees to the orphanage. The teak provides a source of income and the fruit trees sustenance.
A year later returning to the Entrepreneurs Business School the concept of the first Carbon Life Credit was created by the foundation and auctioned off with both Daniel Priestley & Liz Grey trying to outbid each other to become the first person to offset their lifetime of emissions. The auction created much-needed revenue to continue the operations and allow the foundation to flourish. As they say from small acorns a great oak tree grows and continues to grow thanks to the support of the individuals mentioned above without whom none of this would have been possible.
THANK YOU
PATT Foundation is built on a foundation of 3 pillars; Trees, Training & Therapy. Our goal is to change the world one tree at a time. We work with communities to create woodlands and forests to help combat climate change for a better future. We have planted around the world to help areas fight back against deforestation, create wildlife habitat and build natural environments.
