Of the revenue ShopForTerra earns, 30% is donated to environmental organizations, split evenly — 7.5% each — across four nonprofits. This article explains what each does and why the portfolio is built the way it is, rather than concentrating the full donation on one cause.
The thinking behind a portfolio
Environmental harm is not a single problem, so a fixed donation to a single organization would also have to make a single bet about what matters most. The alternative we chose is a small portfolio spread across different categories of environmental work: materials and waste, marine systems, and forests. The four organizations were picked so that each addresses a different part of the problem the products on this site are reacting to.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation — the circular economy
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation works to accelerate the transition to a circular economy: an economic model in which materials are kept in use, waste and pollution are designed out, and natural systems are regenerated — rather than the current "take–make–dispose" model. Its work spans research, business networks, and policy, and it has been influential in pushing major companies to redesign packaging and products for circularity.
This maps directly to the emphasis on recycled, repairable, and modular products in our catalog. The clearest link is to products carrying the "recycled" or "circular" eco-tags — these exist precisely because redesigning how materials flow is the foundation's core argument.
Ocean Conservancy — marine systems
Ocean Conservancy is a science-based organization working on ocean health, with focus areas including plastic pollution, sustainable fisheries, and climate-driven changes to marine systems. It is one of the older ocean-focused NGOs and is known for engaging directly with both science and policy rather than only advocacy.
The products on this site that reduce single-use plastic, or that use recycled ocean-bound material, connect to this work. The connection is straightforward: a large share of ocean plastic enters from land-based waste, so products designed to eliminate disposable plastic at the source address a leading cause of the marine degradation this organization works to mitigate.
One Tree Planted — reforestation
One Tree Planted is a reforestation nonprofit that funds tree-planting in regions affected by deforestation. It plants through local partners and lets donors target regions and projects, which makes the work geographically flexible and traceable.
Reforestation is the most direct intervention against two of the drivers our products try to reduce: atmospheric carbon and habitat loss. Forests are both a carbon sink and a habitat, so restoring them addresses climate and biodiversity at the same time. We connect this to products that depend on land use — anything agricultural, wooden, or paper-based — because responsible forestry and reforestation are the two sides of keeping forest-based products sustainable.
Rainforest Alliance — forests, agriculture, and business
Rainforest Alliance works at the intersection of business, agriculture, and forests, certifying producers (coffee, cocoa, tea, timber) who manage land responsibly and meet standards on deforestation, labor, and community welfare. The certification mark on a product signals that its agricultural inputs came from farms meeting those standards.
This differs from One Tree Planted in that it works on the demand side rather than restoration — it aims to keep forests standing by making it more profitable to manage them well than to clear them. The connection to our catalog is clearest for food and agricultural products, where certified commodities (coffee, cocoa) are a direct lever for reducing the leading cause of tropical deforestation.
Why it's an even split
The 7.5% each split is deliberately equal rather than weighted. A weighted split would require a defensible claim that, for example, the circular economy is twice as impactful per dollar as reforestation — a claim that's hard to make honestly across such different work. Equal weighting is the most defensible default and rests on the view that each of these areas is important enough that none should be crowded out by the others' fundraising appeal. You can see the current revenue share and an estimated donation total for each on the Organizations and Transparency pages.