GCash makes it easier for Green Heroes to digitally plant trees

What started out in June of 2019 as a special in-app feature in GCash, the country’s leading mobile wallet, is now a widespread campaign to help save the environment.

GCash Forest, which allows users to plant virtual trees with real life counterparts, has made it easier and more convenient for its users to plant trees through their mobile phones. Now, GCash Forest users, known as Green Heroes, may collect their Green Energy (GE) in App, which are used to plant the virtual trees, within three days instead of the previous 24 hours. This also allows users to collect from your friends if they have not yet.

The amount of GE necessary refers to how much carbon emissions the specific tree species can absorb after a year of growth. Likewise, GCash Forest now includes new tree species to provide a diverse set of trees in the Ipo Watershed within the Angat Watershed Forest Reserve in Norzagaray, Bulacan.

“Despite a year of massive success for GCash Forest, we still want to make sure user experience remains topnotch to maintain or increase momentum when it comes to the number of trees planted. At the end of the day, our goal is to encourage more people to take part in this campaign to save our environment,” GCash President and CEO Martha Sazon said.

5 mobile apps that help you help the planet

With almost everything at our fingertips—from shopping, banking to food deliveries and payment of utility bills—you can’t really blame people, both young and old, for spending too much time on their mobile phones.

Though we try to our best to limit our daily interactions with our mobile device for our health’s sake, let’s put our excessive screen time to good use while we are at it by being champions of the environment.

Yes, there are several apps out there that allows you to help save the Earth and fight climate change wherever you are with just a few taps on your phone. If we can’t do a Greta Thunberg in real life, we can do our part virtually but still have real positive effects on the environment.

The rise of the digital eco-warriors

When sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg gave her impassioned speech at this year’s UN Climate Action Summit in New York, she was met with a mix of varying responses when she called out the world’s biggest leaders and berated them for leaving the burden of climate change on the shoulders of future generations.

However, one defining outcome was made clear—today’s young generation acknowledges the urgency to take matters into their own hands to save the Earth. Just like Greta, millennial youth from all over the world desire to do their share in protecting the environment but may be at a loss on how to do so. 

1.3 M Filipinos boost green movement with GCash Forest

Growing a tree is grand work: it requires grit, a whole lot of TLC, and exceptional skills to keep it alive.

But green thumb or not, over 1.3 million Filipinos are now putting their tap-happy fingers to work to help the country increase its forest cover through GCash Forest, a special feature on the GCash app that strives to boost reforestation efforts while building a cashless nation.

GCash Forest allows users to grow virtual trees that will have real-life counterparts at the Ipo Watershed, a source of Metro Manila’s critical water supply that is losing forest cover at an alarming rate.

A personal carbon tracker, GCash Forest keeps tabs of how much emission subscribers have avoided by choosing greener activities, which have corresponding “green energy” points that accumulate when done frequently.

Facts and Statistics That Lead To Creating Gcash Forest

To further understand why there is a need to have GCash Forest is because of the current state of Philippine biodiversity and environmental status. From what used to be a lush tropical archipelago, the country has progressed into a more commercial and industrial path which lead to big changes in the environment but caused a huge effect on nature itself.

But first let's dive deep into what Philippine Biodiversity is:

GCash Forest Launched To Plant Trees Virtually and Literally

By law, Filipinos are required to plant one tree per year known as the Arbor Day act of 2012. But we highly doubt many would have complied to this due to the complexities of planting even just a single tree, and also the time and effort need to make it happen. Yet the need for trees is a must now. With climate change and man-made development of land causes strains in the environment, the ecosytem, and eventually into the lives of many people as the weather changes and many face a huge change in the air, the soil, and all living things who rely on the earth.