Giving Back 1%: Roll Up Your Sleeves and GET TO WORK

Our 1% GIVING BACK story is far from over. We have you—our dear, loyal PLEIN PUBLIQUE fans—to thank for the fact that our 2024 piggy bank is now bursting at the seams ❤❤❤ Thanks to your purchases, we’re riding a Big Green Wave :-) As usual, we’ve carefully researched additional “charities” and initiatives that give our beloved nature a helping hand, and we’ve once again found a few gems that make our green hearts beat faster. The top GIVING BACK 1% picks for 2024: we’ll introduce them to you one by one.

From the 2024 series “Doers with a Green Cause”:

AANPOTEN Foundation

Roll up our sleeves and get to work—that’s totally our motto ;-) The AANPOTEN (A word that works both as ‘get to work’ and ‘plant new shrubs’ in Dutch ;-) Foundation strives to restore biodiversity in the Netherlands. Is that necessary? You bet! Here’s a quick refresher: without sufficient biodiversity, ecosystems can’t function properly. Biodiversity regulates the climate and the water cycle, purifies water and air, breaks down organic waste, ensures the pollination of plants and the dispersal of seeds, and protects against diseases. In short: everything our environment needs to keep us happy and healthy.

"Nature restoration—we've got it covered..."

Brilliant in its simplicity is the concept behind the AANPOTEN Foundation, conceived by two friends—ecologist and nature photographer Ruurd Jelle van der Leij and singer-songwriter Ruben Hein—both nature lovers through and through. Move over RiRi, we’re Team RuRu! Frustrated by the slow pace of efforts to restore biodiversity in the Netherlands, the two men decided to roll up their sleeves and take matters into their own hands. The foundation’s structure is also (bio)diverse, as it’s divided into an active branch (planting) and a supporting branch in the form of a transparent platform for donations.

GET TO WORK

The hands-on aspect simply involves planting native shrubs and trees where they’re needed. If you’re a farmer, gardener, or landowner and have a piece of land you can use for nature restoration, the AANPOTEN Foundation will ensure biodiversity-friendly (Wordfeud, anyone?) planting. During two “Aanpoot Days” each year (spring and fall), volunteers personally plant a mix of 10 native trees and shrubs in the ground. We love it.

PLANT THE LAND

Not a large-scale landowner but still interested in this green initiative? Donations are more than welcome; they’ll be used to purchase trees and shrubs and to cover expenses, such as the travel costs of the volunteers who transport the plants to their final destination. Just to be clear, AANPOTEN is a nonprofit foundation!

As Ruurd Jelle van der Leij & Ruben Hein so beautifully put it themselves: “In our vision for the future, we see a network of miniature nature areas across the Netherlands serving as a springboard for biodiversity. Managed independently by private individuals, farmers, and landowners.”

Conclusion: the donation that the AANPOTEN Foundation received from PLEIN PUBLIQUE—partly on your behalf—has literally been taking root. Burying money for later? Maybe not too crazy after all ;-)

future-proof classics
future-proof planet

* Donation made through the AANPOTEN Foundation. This foundation is registered with the tax authorities as an ANBI (Public Benefit Organization), which means we can deduct the donation from our taxes, and the AANPOTEN Foundation does not pay tax on the donation. Hands off, government. You can go dig around in the soil of your own community gardens. That’s good for biodiversity, too. :-)

More info:

AANPOTEN Foundation website