The Tree People

Most people agree that climate change is a threat to our society and way of life, but many feel powerless to do something about it. Genesis Energy, New Zealand’s largest energy retailer, has launched a new web-based challenge three weeks ago to help all New Zealanders, and particularly young people, change their habits and reduce their personal carbon footprints.

Tree People is designed to capture the imagination of children and the interest of adults through an interactive on-line forum where members plant their own virtual native trees, forming a virtual native forest. The site www.treepeople.co.nz encourages children and adults of New Zealand to make a “pledge” to do something that will help fight climate change.

Pledges for children include walking to school and showering instead of taking a bath; pledges for adults range from drying washing outside instead of using a dryer to car pooling.
The trees grow according to several factors, such as carbon savings, the number of times you visit your tree. Each tree owner can recruit “sponsors”, who could be family members, friends or neighbours. The tree owner can ask a sponsor to help grow the tree by also making a pledge to make a small change to their own lifestyle. Treepeople is entertaining as well as educational, and children can even win prizes for themselves and their school.

Murray Jackson, Chief Executive of Genesis Energy says, “Tree People is not about massive change, it’s about the many small steps we can all take together.”

“We have deliberately avoided creating another carbon calculator. This is about forming new habits and educating our young people who are learning about climate change and global warming at school and want to know how they can help. Tree People gets them involved through an Internet community - forums which they are already growing up with.”

The Tree People website is dominant part of the cross media campaign created by Lowe and Rivet in Sydney. The campaign contains more items to make the people of New Zealand aware of Tree People, see below.

Tree People tv ad:

Tree People print ad:

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