The world is expected to pass the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming threshold within 10 to 15 years, and 2 degrees Celsius by 2060. So much plastic is produced and released into the environment that just the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers 1.6 million square kilometers - twice the size of Texas. It’s up to major companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because they make up the vast majority of emissions and plastic production, directly and indirectly. While this is not a complete list, it shows many companies that will help save the Earth from climate change and pollution.
1. Tesla
Tesla is the leading electric vehicle company in the world, selling a whopping 1.3 million cars just in 2022. They are aiming to hit 3 million cars in 2023, more than any other company on the planet. These vehicles can travel hundreds of miles, and charge very quickly. They easily compete with gasoline-powered cars but are better because electricity is cheaper than gas. The Tesla vehicles have saved over 20 million tons of carbon dioxide, and continue to increase this number exponentially.
Tesla isn’t just helping the Earth by itself - they are pressuring other car companies to start making electric cars, and eventually to only make electric vehicles. General Motors will stop manufacturing cars that rely on fossil fuels by the year 2035. With the help of car companies worldwide, pollution can be dramatically reduced worldwide. Entire cities can be engulfed in smog for months on end. Without the pollution from cars powered by fossil fuels, the cities can look normal again.
But it’s not just the electric vehicles that are helping to save the environment - they also sell the lowest-cost solar panels in the United States. If a loan is taken out, the solar panels would cost about $100 or less but save hundreds of dollars every month. They allow millions of families to install solar panels and save money, and save the environment. Less CO2 will be released into the atmosphere.
Tesla has also built the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery. It was constructed in just 100 days. It has a storage capacity of 129 megawatt-hours, which is enough to power 30,000 homes for an hour. This battery has stopped power blackouts by stabilizing the electricity grid in half a second. These batteries could - and will - be used in hundreds of locations worldwide, easing one of the worries that a 100% renewable energy country poses. It is truly a game-changer for a world that is aiming for 100% renewable energy.
Furthermore, The Boring Company digs tunnels that help alleviate congestion in cities. Idling vehicles cause a lot of pollution, so this will help keep the atmosphere clean.
And - just in case we destroy the environment on Earth - Elon Musk’s SpaceX will colonize Mars and allow humans to live on the planet permanently. This could also be the first of many planets that the human civilization terraforms. We can avoid the mistakes that we made on Earth, and make sure that we preserve the environment forever - not just for a generation.
The planet depends on every individual’s actions. That is why we need to do something immediately. We at Bryotic Worlds offset your carbon footprint for as little as $10 a month and plant a tree for every dollar spent. We also reinvest 100% of our money into growth so that we can offset the amount of carbon dioxide that a small country emits. Use code: “SaveTheEarth” for your first month free! Sign up here.
2. Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat is a company that sells plant-based meat - meatless food that tastes like meat. According to Beyond Meat, this “meat” improves human health, positively impacts climate change, addresses global resource constraints, and boosts animal welfare. As of 2021, more than 300 million Beyond Burgers have been sold, but it is undoubtedly much higher now.
After diving deeper into the data, it is revealed that a Beyond Burger uses 99% less water, 93% less land, creates 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and uses 46% less energy.
The world is prone to droughts, so 99% less water could mean the difference between running out of water or not. This would significantly help California and its Central Valley. Farmers would be more free to use water, and more food could be grown.
With a rapidly expanding global population, human civilization is running out of room. With these burgers needing 93% less land to be made, forests could stop being cut down. Agriculture is responsible for more than 90% of deforestation in the tropics. Reducing the need for real beef could save millions of acres of precious forest. Also, there would be less water pollution. With much less land needed, less fertilizer will need to be used. There would be less runoff of chemicals, which could help diminish the size of the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico, saving millions of marine animals.
90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions being created would mean that climate change can slow down dramatically. As it is widely known, cows produce a lot - a lot - of methane. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.” Switching to plant-based meat could be a game-changer for reducing the effects of climate change on the world.
Using 46% less energy would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Less coal or natural gas being burned would decrease not just the carbon dioxide emissions, but also the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates, carbon dioxide, mercury, and other heavy metals, and fly ash and bottom ash from being released into the environment.
Beyond Meat allows people to help the environment without giving up meat. This company can help the Earth on a massive scale if they are able to sell more of its product.
3. Vestas
Vestas has installed more wind power than almost anyone else in the world. According to Vestas, they have installed 164 gigawatts in 88 countries. This is enough to power all of Mexico; they have already prevented 1.5 billion tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere. With 837 gigawatts of wind capacity installed worldwide, they make up 20% of the global market share.
They also build the largest wind turbine in the world - the Vestas V236. It has a capacity of a tremendous 15 megawatts, with a rotor diameter of 236 meters. It is able to produce up to 80 gigawatt-hours every single year, powering 26.4 million houses for an hour. In simpler terms, it can power over 20,000 homes consistently. It will save tens of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.
Wind is one of the renewable energies that is being harnessed, and this supports the environment a lot. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, 1.65 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide were released from electricity generation in the United States in 2021. Wind energy will decrease these emissions a great deal over the next couple of decades. Vestas is leading this change by creating the biggest and most efficient wind turbines in the world. We talk much more about renewable energy in our next blog.
4. The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup is an environmental organization that is based in the Netherlands. The goal of The Ocean Cleanup is exactly what the name implies: to clean up the pollution that sits at or near the surface. Also, they recently started intercepting the pollution in rivers in an effort to stop it from escaping into the ocean. Oh - and Boyan Slat founded the company when he was just 19 years old. The issues of ocean plastic were outlined in our first blog.
They estimate that half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be eliminated in just 5 years with their technology. According to The Ocean Cleanup, there are up to 3.6 trillion pieces of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, stretching over 1.6 million kilometers - twice the size of Texas. That means 1.8 trillion of these pieces would be picked up in 5 years. There is no technology in the world that is as efficient as this.
The organization also wants to stop plastic from getting into the ocean in the first place. They have the goal of putting an Interceptor, a boat that traps plastic and forces it into a dumpster, in the 1,000 dirtiest rivers. Each of these Interceptors can catch up to 100,000 kilograms of plastic every single day, saving marine species and keeping the water quality satisfactory. They already have 11 Interceptors capturing thousands of pounds of trash a day.
Plastic can be eaten by marine species, which could cause them to die. Humans will have less food, but the food they do catch will be filled with plastic - literally. Through a process called biomagnification, species higher up on the food chain will have much more plastic and chemicals in them than the species directly below. Humans then eat this and become sick over time.
Economies all over the world will lose a combined $16 billion every year because of these plastics. Tourism will be less appealing, fisheries will no longer have a reliable source of fish, and governments will have to clean this up.
We at Bryotic Worlds hope that one day, revenue will be high enough to donate to causes like this. Offset your carbon footprint and save the Earth for our children and grandchildren here!
5. Patagonia
Patagonia is an outdoor clothing company that is leading the clothing industry toward a more sustainable path. They donate 1% of their revenue to environmental nonprofit organizations. $1.5 billion worth of products are sold every year, which adds up to $15 million being donated annually. In just one year, Patagonia funded over 1,000 groups that are focused on helping the environment.
In addition to this, they are taking action to protect public lands and waters, the Arctic, and people that are vulnerable to damage caused to the environment. They are taking on Big Oil, and preventing oil drilling in diverse and low-income communities. They bring attention to the problems forced onto people and the environment and change the world for the better.
Furthermore, they are progressing towards 100% renewable and recycled raw materials, with two-thirds of their wear using recovered material. Very few clothing companies have achieved this goal - or even committed to it - so it is industry-leading. Also, they aim to be carbon neutral by the year 2025, but 100% of their electricity already comes from renewable energy in North America. Additionally, they sell used clothes and fix existing ones, which limits the amount of waste being created, along with greenhouse gases and water.
In 2018, Patagonia donated all of its tax savings - a total of $10 million - in an effort to battle climate change. This was an effort to show that taxes are needed because they protect our environment. Patagonia could have kept this extra money, but donating it revealed that other companies can give money to environmental causes. In September, the founder donated all of the company’s shares to nonprofits, once again proving Patagonia’s dedication to helping.
6. Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental organization that uses action to push the world to be more environmentally friendly. They value biodiversity and desire to stop the unsustainable practices that affect the Earth’s oceans, land, air, and freshwater. They were founded in 1971 when they attempted - unsuccessfully - to stop a nuclear test from proceeding on Amchitka Island, Alaska.
Since then, they have pressured Burberry to “commit to rid its manufacturing process of toxic perfluorinated chemicals by 2020,” and Primark and Adidas made this pledge soon after. They have pressured many companies to reduce their plastic production and use.
Major companies will likely do nothing to help the environment unless they are pressured - by their customers - to enact change. That is why Greenpeace is so important. They directly pressure these companies to change their ways. They target giant companies around the world, like Exxon or Nestlé, to help the environment.
7. General Electric
General Electric is another company that is leading the way to a greener world. Although they help build natural gas-burning power plants, they are a major renewable energy installer. They have installed over 400 gigawatts of renewable energy, preventing millions of tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. They have almost 50,000 wind turbines - not windmills, Donald Trump - all over the world. This is almost the same number as how many wind turbines are in the United States: 58,000. Also, they are responsible for 25% of the world’s hydropower installations. In addition to this, “90% of utilities [are] equipped with [their] grid solutions.” The changes they decide to implement will be worldwide. Their renewable energy operations are now carbon neutral, too.
Furthermore, they help the world shift away from coal. Sometimes, they build natural gas-burning power plants in order to prevent the burning of coal. But these carbon-emitting energies will be burned more efficiently, meaning that less carbon dioxide and other harmful pollutants will be released into the atmosphere.
General Electric supports the Paris Climate Agreement, so they can pressure other companies to decrease their carbon emissions. They can help countries get to their climate targets, and stop the world from heating more than 2 degrees Celsius. They can make renewable energy more affordable, so as to allow greater use of carbon-free energy in poorer countries. But going into the future, General Electric needs to stop the sale of all carbon-emitting technology. Encouraging the use of natural gas will only make full decarbonization more difficult. Countries are reluctant to get rid of power plants that were built this century, as shown in the United States and across the world.
8. Ecosia
Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees. Since they were founded in December 2009, they have planted over 170 million trees across the world. They have done so by donating 80% of their profits, or 50% of their total revenue, to nonprofit organizations that plant trees where they make the most change. Every 45 searches are able to plant one tree.
Ecosia has more than 20 million users, with half of them coming from Germany and the United States. France and the United Kingdom also contain many of their users. They get more than 20 million search queries a day. This puts them as the 9th largest search engine in the world. To power all of these searches, they built their own solar plants that power 200% of their searches.
Here’s a little math about how they impact the environment: the average person makes about 3 or 4 search queries a day, but we’ll say 4 searches a day. This adds up to 1,460 searches per year. Every search request will 1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Over the course of a year, 1.6 tons of carbon dioxide will be removed from the atmosphere. About 32 trees would be planted every year, with more being planted if the user lives in a lucrative advertising country, like the United States. Furthermore, they plant a tree every 1.3 seconds, which is about 25 million trees a year.
The Ecosia search engine shows their financial reports every month. In December of 2022, they made about 3.7 million euros, and planted over 9 million trees! They donated a total of 1.9 million euros to 19 different projects in 13 different countries. In Burkina Faso, Ecosia has planted 15 million trees and restored 14,000 hectares in 9 years, helping to “restore desertified land to its former fertility, curb violent conflict by creating employment, improve nutrition through agroforestry, and encourage communities to take charge of their future.” They also help protect local wildlife, some of which are endangered.
They are also privacy friendly. They don’t sell their customers’ data, don’t have third-party trackers, and anonymize all of the searches done on the search engine within 7 days. Privacy is becoming much more important around the world. No one wants someone else to look through their browser history.
During the fires that burned much of the Amazon Rainforest in August of 2019, Ecosia committed to planting a total of 3 million trees within a year. This is especially important because the Amazon Rainforest is called the “lungs of the Earth.” But it’s not just the capability of the Rainforest to suck carbon dioxide out of the air that is so important - there’s also the diverse wildlife that it contains.
If the Ecosia search engine was as large as Google’s search engine, Ecosia would be capable of planting over 25 billion trees every single year. Tens of millions of acres of forest would be replanted just from one nonprofit organization. If they expand into other markets, like email or debit cards, they can plant billions of trees more. That is why Ecosia partnered with Treecard.
Want to offset your carbon footprint and plant hundreds of trees a year? Sign up today and use the coupon code “SaveTheEarth” to get your first month free!
9. Treecard
Treecard is a debit card that will donate 80% of its profits to reforestation projects. In a complement to tree-planting, “each card will feature a unique wood grain and is made from sustainably sourced cherry wood.” Over 10 billion credit and debit cards are manufactured every year, so making them biodegradable will have a huge positive impact on the environment.
According to Treecard, one cherry tree can allow the production of more than 300,000 cards. Very few trees will be cut down because of this. The core is constructed from recycled plastic bottles, too. Because some people don’t want to contribute to the cutting down of trees, the Treecard can be used through their app.
Furthermore, the Treecard is free. This will encourage more people to start using the card and therefore plant many more trees. The merchant pays Treecard a minimal transaction fee, which will then be used to plant trees. Every $50 spent will plant a tree. The average customer will plant about 60 trees a year if they live outside of the United States, and about 120 trees a year if they live inside of the United States.
Users can also round up their payments and donate that money to tree planting; every dollar donated will plant a tree. Even better, everyone can take 10,000 steps and plant a tree (if 30 new users are referred, every 5,000 steps will plant a tree). If all of Ecosia’s users started to use Treecard, over 6 billion trees would be planted every year. This is many times more than their 1 billion trees planted goal.
As of April 2023, Treecard has planted over 1 million trees and plants more than 24,000 a day; one tree for every 6 seconds. Just at the beginning of the year, they were only planting 2,000 trees a year.
Since Treecard partners with Mastercard, the Treecard can be frozen at any time if the debit card is lost, there is an insurance cover, and full banking security. They are very trustworthy, and the card can be used just like a person would use another debit card.
If Treecard gains traction and gets millions of customers, it will be able to reforest millions of acres every year. They can save endangered species from going extinct. They can help stop climate change from causing havoc on Earth. And they can give thousands of people food and jobs.
10. Eden Reforestation Projects
Eden Reforestation Projects is another nonprofit organization that restores destroyed natural landscapes through reforestation. Since they were founded in 2004, Eden Reforestation Projects has planted over a billion trees, with over 750 million trees in Madagascar alone. Considering that a person is capable of planting 100 trees a day, they are responsible for creating 7.5 million workdays. Every tree planted is a native tree, so the habitat is able to be restored almost completely.
So far, they have planted trees in 280 project sites in 10 different countries, all of which are severely impacted by deforestation. Some of these countries include Indonesia, Madagascar, and Kenya. These projects have allowed thousands of impoverished families to get a sustainable income, and buy more food or give their children an education.
Replanting forests restores animal habitats, restores rainfall, purifies water, increases water tables, and flooding and soil erosion are halted, which increases soil quality. These will cause crop yields to increase, leading to stronger farms and economies, decreased poverty rates, and fewer villagers will be at risk of slavery.
Eden Reforestation Projects will have a major impact on the world. Because each tree costs about $0.15, reforestation can occur on a very large scale. Furthermore, these reforestation projects give the forests a head start to regrowing or being able to grow back at all. This will help save endangered species, too. This organization can encourage people to plant trees in their area in order to restore native habitats, save endangered species, and fight climate change.
Here’s a fun fact: we at Bryotic Worlds have a goal of planting 1 million trees through Eden Reforestation Projects. Join us in our mission!
11. Bitcoin
Everyone has heard of Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency. Another way to put it is that it is a virtual currency. There is a debate about whether or not Bitcoin actually helps the environment. Looking at the data, Bitcoin is a net positive when it comes to sustainability. As of summer 2022, “published estimates of the total global electricity usage for crypto-assets are between 120 and 240 billion kilowatt-hours per year, a range that exceeds the total annual electricity usage of many individual countries, such as Argentina or Australia.” That’s 0.4% to 0.9% of annual global electricity consumption. That means that Bitcoin increases carbon dioxide emissions by less than half a percent.
Now for the good part. According to Business Today, almost 60% of Bitcoin's electricity usage comes from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydro. Most of Bitcoin’s potential emissions are stopped because of this, whether Bitcoin miners do it for sustainability reasons or profitability reasons. In Texas, ERCOT, the organization that manages Texas’s electrical grid, sometimes orders Bitcoin miners to turn off the servers they use to mine Bitcoin. They can very quickly free up thousands of megawatts of electricity, preventing coal and natural gas plants from burning more fossil fuels. And because many of these miners have renewable energy, overall carbon emissions will be reduced when electricity consumption is high, like in the summer or the infamous winter of 2021.
Bitcoin miners have built millions of dollars worth of renewable energy that offset most of their greenhouse gas emissions. They still do have to get the final 40% of their electricity consumption to come from renewable sources. More and more electricity is being used for crypto mining, and many people argue that it is out of control. Countries may have to impose limits on Bitcoin mining to avoid disrupting their grid.
12. Hydro Flasks
Hydro Flask is a water bottle company that almost everyone knows about. Almost every student has some sort of reusable water bottle, and Hydro Flask has led the way. Although it is not known how many Hydro Flasks have been sold, it is likely over 100 million. The average person consumes 13 bottles of water every month, adding up to over 150 a year. This means that billions of water bottles are saved every single year, just in the United States.
A plastic water bottle takes hundreds of years to decompose and kills thousands of animals a year. There are many plastic things in the world, like wrappers and plastic bags, that need to disappear from the public forever. It is impossible to avoid plastic, so it is up to the major companies, like Nestlé, to reduce plastic consumption. Consumers need to protest and sign petitions to force them to change their ways and become more sustainable.
13. UPSIDE Foods
UPSIDE Foods is a company that specializes in cultivated meat, also known as cultured meat or lab-grown meat. It’s not as scary as it sounds, though. Stem cells are taken from an animal without harming it, and the cells are then placed in bioreactors. They will grow and divide very quickly in a nutrient-rich solution until the meat is ready to be harvested in 2-8 weeks. It may be surprising to some that this cultivated meat tastes exactly like regular meat and has the same consistency. Cultured meat is real meat but just produced in a different way.
Because lab-grown meat isn’t harvested from real animals, fewer animals will be killed, fewer diseases will spread, land used for meat production will be reduced by 99%, and water usage will be reduced by up to 96%. Because cultivated meat uses so much less water, getting enough people to start eating this kind of meat could solve the Western United States’ water problem. Because half of water goes toward animal agriculture, only 10-15% of the meat market needs to be cultured meat for Lake Mead to be saved. Lab-grown meat will have a much easier time gaining a large market share because it tastes just like regular meat, unlike plant-based meat.
UPSIDE Foods plans to bring its meat to restaurants in 2023, and grocery stores by 2028. They hope to directly compete with regular meat in terms of price by 2030. If this meat ends up being cheaper than regular meat and tastes exactly the same, its market share could grow significantly.
Animal agriculture still produces enormous amounts of greenhouse gases that won’t stop being produced for decades to come. You can help offset these emissions by offsetting one ton of CO2 and planting 20 trees a month here. All of our profits are reinvested so your dollar has the biggest impact possible.
Conclusion
Many of these companies will have big impacts in 2023, but most of them will have increasingly larger impacts as time goes on. UPSIDE Foods will likely have the biggest impact when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide and methane, and The Ocean Cleanup will likely have the biggest impact when it comes to plastic pollution. We are only a few years away from these organizations potentially fixing global issues single-handedly. We should all have hope that the Earth will be saved. We have the tools to do so. All we need to do is implement them.