When Scotland-based spirits company Edrington launched its Noble Oak whiskey brand in 2017, it did so with sustainability baked into the mission. For every bottle of double-oaked bourbon or rye that Noble Oak sells, the company donates $1 to One Tree Planted, a nonprofit organization that supports reforestation efforts around the globe.
“Trees are the backbone of our planet,” says brand manager Caiti Soares. “They provide clean air, clean water, food, medicine, jobs, habitats. So, it really was a no brainer.”
For Noble Oak, finding a cause to align with the brand was nonnegotiable. Edrington—also the parent company of Macallan and Highland Park, among other labels—is owned by the Robertson Trust, which donates a portion of shareholder dividends to support charities. The idea was to find a way to give back and improve the planet, Soares says, and trees were an obvious choice—especially given the company name.
To date, Noble Oak has donated more than $1.24 million to One Tree Planted, supporting more than 60 projects such as post-wildfire reforestation in Colorado and urban planting at high schools throughout Illinois.
Generally, one sapling costs $1, so the Noble Oak website proudly touts that the company—and its customers—have helped plant 1,240,000 trees nationwide.
“Our goal is to hit 2 million trees in 2025,” Soares says.
Noble Oak is one of several spirits companies investing in a greener future by partnering with nonprofits that specialize in reforestation and tree regeneration. These partnerships require little more than a commitment and a regular disbursement of funds to make an impact on sustaining the planet and, importantly, the industry. After all, whiskey and many other spirits wouldn’t be possible without wood.
An added bonus: The message resonates well with drinkers.
Elliott Sneen is brand manager for Redwood Empire, a Northern California whiskey producer that launched in 2019 under the Purple Brands umbrella. It works with the nonprofit Trees for the Future, pledging to plant one tree for each bottle sold, supporting efforts to promote agroforestry and thoughtful land management in Africa.
Sneen says he’s never heard skepticism about whether the company is making good on its promise to get trees in the ground. “Our consumers, at least, welcome it wholeheartedly,” he says, “and they love the fact they’re contributing by enjoying whiskey and making some sort of a difference.”
Finding the Right Partner
There are myriad organizations that focus on reviving natural habitats through tree planting. While they often operate differently, they’re all motivated by the same sobering statistics.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, the world is losing the equivalent of 27 soccer fields of forest per minute to deforestation. Most of that is in tropical regions, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, and much of it is due to unsustainable agricultural practices that devastate the land.
Trees are vital to climate stability because they sequester carbon dioxide from the air and help protect natural ecosystems. When the United Nations issued its red flag report about the Earth’s rising temperature in 2018, UN Environmental Programme executive director Erik Solheim said that humans needed to stop all emissions by 2050, or they must remove as much carbon dioxide from the air as they previously put into it. “The radical transformation also would mean that, in a world projected to have more than two billion additional people by 2050, large swaths of land currently used to produce food would instead have to be converted to growing trees that store carbon and [to] crops designated for energy use,” The Washington Post reported at the time.
The task may seem insurmountable, but nonprofits such as One Tree Planted aim to make it as accessible as possible. The organization acts as an intermediary between donors and the folks with their hands in the dirt, vetting projects and connecting them with funding to get the job done. “There’s a whole science behind the tree planting, and sometimes folks in the business space don’t really want to touch that,” says Michelle Senthivel, senior account manager. “So, it’s easier to go through us. We basically do all the legwork, and they make the donation.”
One Tree Planted works with more than 700 planting partners worldwide to support a broad range of initiatives, from reforestation following natural disasters to strengthening native peoples’ connection to their lands. The goal is to plant as many trees as possible, Senthivel says, and projects always emphasize a holistic approach to restoring native species and promoting biodiversity. “For us, the impact is trees, tree species, jobs created, hectares restored, and your environmental factors, like biodiversity,” Senthivel says. “If it was forest-fire restoration, we’d have information about that.”
In 2022, One Tree Planted facilitated the planting of about 52.8 million trees through more than 300 projects in 74 countries, restoring 97,000-plus hectares of forest. (The organization specifically does not measure carbon sequestration, Senthivel says, because of the cost associated with the necessary certification to do so.)
One Tree Planted also monitors each project and collects data to help donors share the impact their dollars are making.
Some organizations take a more focused approach. The White Oak Initiative, for example, aims to replenish the United States white-oak population by advocating for responsible land management. The goal is to avoid a shortage of the species, which is both a critical source for barrel production and in critical danger of depletion.
The issue isn’t planting as much as it is creating the apt conditions for oak trees to mature and thrive—a process that takes about 80 years, says White Oak Initiative executive director Jason Meyers. “Tree planting is one tool, but not as effective on a broad scale,” he says. “We’re focused on natural regeneration. There are tons of acorns out there; they just need space to get ahead of competing species.”
The White Oak Initiative counts Sazerac, Beam Suntory, and Brown-Forman among its fiscal sponsors. “You’re talking about a valuable ingredient in the supply chain,” Meyers says. “If we don’t address it now, we’re going to see a real shortage in about 20 years. ... The faster we can get on this issue today, the smoother that will be in the future.”
Sustainable Harvest International tackles the ecological challenge from a different angle, training farmers in Latin America in regenerative agriculture practices that help revive their land and natural ecosystems. The organization receives support from Greenbar Distillery in Los Angeles, which donates to their cause—you guessed it—$1 from every bottle of liquor sold.
Trees are just one piece of the broader roadmap toward sustainability that Sustainable Harvest International teaches over the course of its four-year training program. For example, farmers may learn to grow trees in ways that help reduce erosion, replenish watersheds, or offer shade to other crops such as coffee and cocoa.
Educating local communities on sustainability is paramount, says founder Florence Reed, so that the positive impact benefits generations to come. Its goal is to bring one billion trees to one million farms in Honduras, Panama, and Belize by 2030—and, importantly, to see them maintained.
“Trees are all being planted as part of something bigger for the benefit of families and the communities,” Reed says. “That’s why we can go back five, 10, 15 years after a community graduates from our programs, and we find 91 percent of families are still using ecological farming practices they’ve learned. Anecdotally, I’m quite certain the reforested areas are still in place.”
Verifying Impact
Folks at One Tree Planted, Sustainable Harvest International, and the White Oak Initiative concede that the marketing language—namely, that $1 from every bottle plants a tree—can be something of a misnomer.
One dollar covers the cost in large-scale projects, says Senthivel at One Tree Planted, noting that 80 cents go toward planting a tree and 20 cents go toward covering the organization’s overhead. When doing urban forestry, however, a single tree can cost hundreds of dollars.
“It’s always a little difficult to determine the price because most of it covers the training we provide to the farmers—how to plant the seeds, how to grow the tree seedlings, how to take care of them in a nursery, how to transplant them, how to care for them after they’re planted,” Sustainable Harvest International’s Reed says.
Still, both One Tree Planted and Sustainable Harvest International remain dedicated to tracking the tangible impacts of monetary contributions with firsthand testimony from people on the ground, as well as through photos and videos. They also use satellite imagery and sites such as restor.eco to monitor planting. One Tree Planted also plans to leverage drone technology to verify each project’s completion.
Tania Roa, communications and outreach coordinator at Sustainable Harvest International, says the organization is intentional in sharing the stories of the farmers it supports and in helping their donors share that message. “I don’t just post a picture of a person and their farm and not name them,” Roa says. “I don’t think we get accused of greenwashing, and it could be because of that. It’s kind of hard to greenwash when you’re telling people this person’s name and their whole life story.”
The White Oak Initiative fulfills more of an advocacy role, lobbying on behalf of policies that benefit its namesake tree, helping companies allocate grants appropriately and providing a roadmap of solutions for others to embrace. However, Meyer says he understands the marketing dilemma from his history in nonprofit work. Even if the claim is not entirely accurate, it’s far from deceitful, he says. “I kind of look at it as any awareness about planting trees is good awareness,” he says. “The industry’s doing the right thing. I can’t think of anyone I’ve been aware of that’s been disingenuous.”
Plus, Roa is quick to note, none of the work gets done without monetary support—and every dollar helps. Without support from distilleries and others, Roa says, “you don’t have the rest. Our goal is to expand as far as possible because the need is so great.”