Every order plants a tree

We are excited to be teaming up with Rotorua organisation TipuWai to plant native trees on behalf of our customers! We have been thinking about ways to offset the environmental costs of what we do at Nzo.

We start by always doing our best to make a product that will go the distance. But sometimes that distance is pretty decent before the customer has tried the product on! Fabric and components move from factory to factory, finished goods move from factory to Nzo, and individual orders move from Nzo to our customer.

There are many cookie-cutter plug-ins available that enable carbon offset at checkout, but we decided to keep it local and personal. TipuWai is run by riding mates of ours, and their goals align with our own. So every Nzo order will plant a tree, at no extra cost to our customer. We will finance the tree, and personally go out and plant it. All the trees are locally sourced native species planted to help regenerate and protect the health of waterways from where we live on the volcanic plateau down to the sea. 

From TipuWai's website:

Tipu Waiāriki is led by Gregg Brown, a well-known local restauranteur and community leader in Rotorua who previously founded and chaired Rotorua Trails Trust. He owns a small Lake Okareka farm and is passionate about healing the land to cleanse the water. His frustration with the slow progress of planting in the Rotorua lakes catchment inspired him to bring together some key people to form a community nursery that will rely on eco-sourced plants, be nurtured by an at-risk Māori youth programme, and is underpinned by Te Arawa values of manaaki, mātauranga and aroha. The goal of Tipu Waiāriki is to reconnect whenua to tangata: to cleanse both waimāori (living waters) and the wairua (spiritual essence) of our at-risk descendants. The tangata intersection with whenua by planting local endemic natives provides the requisite rongoā desperately required to heal and restore mauri (energy balance) as it flows from source springs into our lakes down rivers like the Kaituna through wetlands of the Maketū estuary and out to sea.

Gregg’s vision has pulled together a team focussed on weaving a new korowai (cloak) that can heal and protect the whenua of Papatuanuku for future generations. This team comprises deep knowledge holders (mohiotanga & science) from both sides of the treaty who are giving generously of their time, resources, land and wisdom, including a Māori land trust, Rotorua Lakes Council and a constellation of passionate locals and funders.