Trees are our calendar.

You can tell a company's story in quarters — or in trees. 2012, the first ones in the Egyptian desert. 2020, the forest of Antoetra. 2023, Fiadanana, planted where there was nothing — first harvest around 2028. That is how we count.

An espresso takes thirty seconds. A tree takes thirty years. We believe: whoever lives off the one owes the other something.

It began in 2012 as an offset — for the CO₂ in the life cycle of our products. And along the way we learned something we write down here because it explains this whole page: planting trees is easy. Knowing whether they are still standing is hard.

Egypt · since 2012 · Sekem

Trees in the desert near El Wahat, with Sekem — the biodynamic pioneer that has been turning sand into farmland since 1977. The project we have seen and checked ourselves over the years. It stands.

Madagascar · 2020–2023 · Antoetra

A forest project in the highlands that we co-funded in 2020. In 2023 we stopped our support: we could no longer verify its impact on the ground — and did not want to put more money into something we cannot see.

Brazil · 2025 · Instituto Terra

Once, we supported the Salgado family's Instituto Terra, which is bringing back a lost Atlantic forest in the Vale do Rio Doce. Not a project of ours — a bow to one that shows how long “long” is.

Fiadanana, Analamanga, Madagaskar: Luftaufnahme der Hügel, auf denen die Kaffeeplantage entsteht

Madagascar · since 2023 · Fiadanana

The answer to everything before: our own land in Analamanga, 79 hectares, planted from nothing — coffee in the shade of trees we set ourselves and see every month. First harvest around 2028.

What we have learned

Of the projects we have supported outside our own farms, there is one today for which we can say with certainty that the trees are standing. That is not a good ratio — and we write it down anyway, because the alternative would be to pretend. That is why, since 2023, we plant mainly where we ourselves stand: at Fiadanana, at Finca Mariposa, at Golden Farm. Trees we can see.

The forest will not thank us. We plant it anyway.

Every cup plants a tree

With every purchase you help ensure that trees are planted and cared for on our farms — and that we stay true to Sekem in the desert.

To the plantations More about our sustainability