It was bound to start like this…
Thuy Nguyen and Ewelina Sasin met at a charity auction at their children’s school. They felt they’d known each other forever from the first words exchanged. Both are mothers of three children (including a pair of twins!), have gathered experience in similar projects, are serial entrepreneurs and investors and… are equally concerned about the planet’s precarious future.
If you do business, do it in favour of the planet.
One day Thuy came up with an idea. She knew that every effort made by businesses and individuals counts in the global effort to reduce emissions as they know no limits. Hence, she thought, why not add them up to demonstrate to everyone how much impact our choices have on reality? Making eco-friendly decisions doesn’t bring quick results. Still, it does make a lot of sense because a carbon-neutral future depends on them. In the global emissions math, the sum of all efforts counts!
That’s how the idea for TERbit – an innovative app that encourages and rewards eco-choices – originated. Thuy shared the concept with Ewelina, and they took action. While working on the app, the start-up expanded its offerings. For its clients, TerGo provides HR programs, ESG consulting, CO2 compensation plans for companies, carbon footprint calculators, and certification of carbon-neutral products. In addition, the company has its own agroforestry project in Belize… and is about to start a new project in Ghana!
Read more: Who are the masterminds behind TerGo?
Why do positive-impact start-ups need foundations?
TerGo is celebrating its 3rd birthday this year. From its beginning, its founders knew that the business’s first stakeholder must be the Earth and its most needy inhabitants. The core of the start-up’s activities is the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, whose scope it successfully manages to expand. The decision to establish a TerGo branch in Belize and create jobs for the local community significantly contributed to this. Those employed in Belize take care of TerGo’s owned land and plantings. By investing in this region, which is already particularly affected by global warming, TerGo is in line with the concept of climate justice.
Farmers in Belize receive a salary double that offered for the same positions in their country. The start-up has also built a company headquarters house and provides daily meals for the farmers. In addition, all the crops from the agroforestry project are given to the workers and the local community – they can use them as they wish.
That’s already a significant step toward improving working and living conditions. Still, it quickly became apparent that… there’s always more that can be done.
Read more: Belize agroforestry project
Belize is full of families in need. Something had to be done to secure the ability to help the local community, regardless of TerGo’s business operations and the degree of employment offered. And so the TerGo Foundation was born.
What do we do at the TerGo Foundation?
We share knowledge and create innovative tools that can be used worldwide. We train, conduct workshops, and educate in person and via the Internet. Tergopedia – a virtual encyclopedia of climate knowledge – helps us do this. Tergopedia is formed by an online community, and anyone can join it!
Promoting transparency in the carbon offset market is the second pillar of the Foundation’s work. That’s why we created the International Forestry Carbon Credit Standard, our own standard for creating agroforestry projects.
The standard emerged to increase transparency in the carbon offset market. The IFCC has a very low financial entry threshold, thus making it possible for anyone to start their own sequestration project. It also supports developing societies in enhancing their own empowerment and entrepreneurship. Using the standard’s planting methodology helps restore biodiversity using the latest knowledge on farmland regeneration.
TerGo Market also aims at increasing ethics in the carbon credit market. This is the first platform for the carbon offset market based on block chain and Web 3.0 technology. TerGo Market allows each offset carbon credit to be recorded in an unalterable block, thus facilitating a reliable record of offset history and certifying offsets as NFTs.
The Foundation is raising funds to help Belizeans. We have planned to build wells near our project soon to ensure continued access to clean drinking water. We also plan to financially support the construction of a system that supplies electricity, repair leaking roofs and build fences for families in the area. Our goal is to help develop the essential infrastructure to meet the most basic human needs, i.e., maintain the health, safety and well-being of villagers in Belize.
We believe that our activities resonate with you.
Want to do something good with us? You can support us:
- by making a donation that will support the statutory goals of the TerGo Foundation (see how);
- by sharing news about our activities on your social media;
- by subscribing to our newsletter;
- by becoming an author of Tergopedia and developing an online encyclopedia of climate knowledge with us;
- by writing to us at: [email protected] to share your ideas for collaborative activities!