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screw you, co2

Take affordable, effective and honest climate action today by planting trees to offset your personal carbon footprint from just £3/month.

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Selva is a great initiative that helps me feel like I am doing my bit
Sweta, USA
I couldn't recommend Selva higher. It's simple, fun and now I'm taking measurable action
Jack, UK
I'm so glad I've signed up. Great idea, great website, great experience. I'm telling everyone
Alexa, UK
A very easy and effective way to reduce your impact. Join the movement!
Agathe, Spain

We created Selva...

... because we think our natural world is pretty awesome, and we know you do that too.
We connect people who care with the world's best carbon-busting reforestation projects.
No preaching, no guilt tripping, just easy, effective and affordable climate action for all.
So, let’s plant trees. Billions and billions of them.
As featured in:
Some of our partners:

here's how you make a difference

...without living off-grid, naked and vegan

1

Calculate your CO2 footprint

It takes 2 minutes, maybe less.

2

Offset this CO2 by planting trees

For about a fiver a month. 85% goes directly to the reforestation projects.

3

Track and share your impact

You'll feel great, carbon won't. Cancel anytime if not.

4

Learn how to reduce your emissions

No preaching, we promise. Just relatable info and advice.

Our Impact

This is what you have achieved so far. Sure, we’re small now, but we’ve got BIG ambition.

Trees planted

10,000,000,000

target by 2040

Why we’re tree total

Nothing sticks it to carbon quite like our foresty friends. Learn more here.
You don’t need five PHDs to build and operate a tree
Trees provide habitats for biodiversity
They’re great fun to climb
Trees create income for some of the world’s poorest
Trees literally eat CO2 for breakfast
Trees are the cheapest tool we have to fight climate change

Where are my trees planted?

We have chosen a selection of the most effective, transparent and carbon hungry forestation projects we could find to plant trees for the Selva community. Learn more here.
We work with the best in the business, operating at the higest standards:

What’s On Your Mind?

About carbon offsetting, reforestation and trees:
Simply put, it is the action of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to compensate for emissions of CO2 generated by our lifestyles. For example, planting carbon-hungry trees can help offset the emissions of taking a flight.
When you sign up to Selva, your contributions are channeled to our carefully selected reforestation partners who plant CO2-absorbing trees on our behalf. These reforestation projects fight climate change by directly reducing the quantity of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. By planting trees there will be less CO2 in the atmosphere than there would have been without your money, and we get one step closer to net-zero global emissions. Less CO2 = less global warming = a healthier, more beautiful and more sustainable planet for all living things, now and in the future.
We’re not going to sugar-coat this. Reversing climate change is one helluva challenge, but great challenges require great collective action, and this is what we are trying to catalyse. It’s our carbon, so it’s our problem. Thankfully, with trees, we have an overlooked but highly effective tool for reducing CO2. Some super smart academics have concluded that reforestation and nature based solutions can provide a whopping 37% of emissions reductions needed by 2030 to help reverse global warming and limit the damage. In other words, trees are crucial in the fight against climate change. If the whole population of the UK contributed $10 per month to tree planting, this could reduce global CO2 emissions by ~3.5%. If the whole population of the EU did the same, global CO2 emissions could fall by over 20%. Lots of small actions can make a HUGE difference!
Absolutely. Before we start thinking about offsetting, we should think about how we can reduce our personal emissions as much as possible. This means considering our diets, our travel habits, and our consumption habits. Can you reduce the meat in your diet? Can you fly less? Can you buy less stuff? The problem is that many activities that are key to a functioning economy (such as cargo shipping and construction) and enjoyable lives (such as travelling to see loved ones and reliable affordable energy to heat our homes) result in CO2 emissions. Technology will gradually improve and decarbonize many parts of the economy, but we have no time to waste. So, in the meantime, we should all work to reduce our footprint where we can and then offset everything else.
About Selva:
For every £/€/$ you contribute, we take 15% to cover our running costs, while the remaining 85% goes to our forestry partners. These running costs include transaction fees, web hosting costs, some marketing to spread the word, and, hopefully soon once we’ve grown a bit, some modest salaries so our founders can pay the bills and we can hire some awesome talent to take Selva to the big time. Once we start taking salaries, we’ll let you know in our published financials. We are not set up as a charity or a non-profit as this would restrict us from accessing external investments that we need to help Selva grow as fast as possible.
We want to be as transparent as possible to give you all the confidence you need to join our community. On the About Us page you can find our Transparency Ledger where you can see a balance between our revenues and all of the invoices from our partners. You can also see a counter of the number of trees that have been planted and the CO2 that they are set to absorb. Our forestry partners are all extremely highly regarded and trusted charities, or have offsets that are verified by the most stringent of international standards. If you have any other ideas about how we can improve trust and transparency then please let us know!
Every month we will charge you the amount specified by your subscription and transfer that money to our forestry partners. Our partners use these funds to plant trees that will get to work in sucking that climate heating CO2 out of the atmosphere. We are able to count how many trees your money has planted, as well as the CO2 that they absorb, and tally them up for you so you can keep track.
The price you pay depends on how much you CO2 you emit, which is estimated by our simple calculator. It also depends on what project you decide to support as they have different prices. They differ because they plant different trees, in different places, and using different strategies. For the average European citizen, it costs about £5 a month.
Fair point, you could. But this massive planet-preserving effort of ours requires scale. It requires a big, loud, passionate community that can attract more climate optimists into the fold. That community is what we are trying to build. By offsetting through Selva you are not just taking responsibility for your own footprint but also helping to fuel the movement by providing us with the support to bring other individuals and companies into our community. This way our reach can become vast and our impact growth becomes exponential.
To estimate your footprint we do some number crunching using data from the likes of the World Bank and Climate Watch. We take average CO2 emissions per person from the country that you live in and then adjust that based on your answers to our questions. Our calculator takes into account other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, as well as carbon dioxide. We also adjust to make sure emissions are assigned to the country in which the goods and services are consumed, not produced. We think it’s fairer and more accurate that way. The four questions we ask (country of residence, flying habits, driving habits, diet) help us get a pretty accurate view of your emissions. We could ask you more about your lifestyle but the accuracy benefits would be minimal and we don’t want to burden you with too many questions. We hope we have found the right balance between accuracy and simplicity.
Trees obviously take some time to grow, keep absorbing CO2 over many many years, and do not absorb carbon at a linear rate. To simplify for this, we calculate the number of trees we plant for you by considering the total amount of CO2 absorbed by each tree over its life. For example, if every month you emit 1.2 tCO2e into the atmosphere and a tree absorbs 0.3 tCO2e over its life, we plant 1.2 / 0.3 = 4 trees per month to offset your footprint for that month. What this means is that in reality you are not carbon neutral the second you subscribe, this isn’t really possible with forestry as all trees need time to grow. But think of it as a CO2 absorption commitment by your trees. By planting trees with Selva you are ensuring that CO2 will be removed from the atmosphere in the coming years and well in time to make a big difference in the fight to reach net zero global emissions by 2050. Our partners have strict focus on long-term impact so ensuring their trees remain alive and well for decades is core to what they do and they do it very well!