FAQs

Scientists, environmentalists, farmers, corporations, philanthropists, supply chains, governments, and investors agree: Deforestation is a serious environmental, social, and economic problem. Greenhouse gas emissions and the urgent need to sequester them with nature-based solutions (NBS) is also widely acknowledged. The issue that skeptics of massive tree-growing projects have, as we understand it, is that poorly designed projects could do more harm than good. Or could fail. We agree.

Spades’ solutions overcome these challenges with SmartTree™: sustainable forests via different trees grown differently.

We created the recipe for a sustainable forest:

• Terrazone finds the fit between people and land, deconflicting competing interests for sustainable and increased results
• Ecofit biotechnology helps select the right tree for the current and future environments

Finance and accountability for socially responsible investing (SRI) that meets environmental, social, and governance criteria is available through:

• Balanced financial services that unlock higher returns, reduces risk and accelerates cash flow

Localization of projects puts skilled, knowledgeable resources on the ground when and where they’re needed:

• Spades’ regreening partners already regrow most of the trees globally, over 250 million per year
• They have unique skills in key areas like mine recovery, blue carbon, arid land solutions, stump recovery, and more
• They know the local face, including community resources and leaders, government officials, smallholder farmers, pastoral peoples, labor pool, and others

Spades’ reforestation and habitat restoration projects vary widely based on objectives and land-use opportunities. They include, but are not limited to:

• Growing projects: Agroforestry, sustainable agriculture, Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR), Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)
• Local community needs: Renewable fuel, sustainable timber, fruits, nuts, medicinals
• Ecosystems: Arid land solutions, biodiverse forest habitats, blue carbon, sea trees, grasslands
• Landscape restoration: Natural landscapes destroyed by deforestation, mine recovery, climate change
• Carbon offsets

Please see our Project Design and Terrazone publications for project design examples.

Use this form to submit a project design idea.

Terrazone maximizes integrated landscape management, or ILM, to address landscape degradation caused by climate change, poor land-management practices, exploitation of the environment, extreme weather, and diminishing biodiversity. Restoring vital ecosystems, Terrazone is an effective solution for parties with vision and strategies for UN Sustainable Development Goals targeting:

• Agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists, and fishers.
• Sustainable food production systems and resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, help maintain ecosystems, strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, and progressively improve land and soil quality.
•  Sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.
• Desertification, degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods.

Spades does not purchase land. Our projects are on government-owned, organization-owned, or private land. We sign agreements with stakeholders to secure the long-term protection and monitoring of the trees.

Forestation, including forest restoration, reforestation, and afforestation, involves planting and growing trees on previously unforested land or restoring damaged forests. The restoration of forests helps degraded forest lands regain their forest structure, ecological processes, and biodiversity.

The process of reforestation involves the planting of trees or the regrowth of trees on land that had previously been covered with forest. In afforestation, trees are planted on land that has not been occupied by forests for a long time.

Forests are capable of storing carbon dioxide for long periods and removing it from the atmosphere as they grow. As long as forestation is done correctly, it can provide a variety of benefits.

Agroforestry is a land-use management practice that integrates crop and animal farming with trees, shrubs, or perennials to create environmental, economic, and social benefits. It is practiced worldwide. It must satisfy the following requirements to be considered agroforestry: integrated, intentional, intensive, and interactive. Common forms of agroforestry include:

• Alley cropping: planting crops between rows of trees
• Forest farming (aka multi-story cropping): growing food, herbal, botanical, or decorative crops under a canopy
• Silvopasture: combining trees with livestock and their forages; trees may produce fruits, nuts, or timber as well as shade and shelter
• Windbreaks: shelter crops, animals, buildings, and soil
• Riparian forest buffers: filter runoff along rivers and streams

Other terms used in agroforestry include:

• Pastoral: land or farm used for or related to the keeping or grazing of sheep or cattle.
• Agropastoral: of or relating to a practice of agriculture that includes both the growing of crops and the raising of livestock
• Ranch: a large farm or land devoted to raising animals such as horses, beef cattle, sheep, or goats

Agroforestry provides many benefits beyond carbon sequestration, including:

• Improved soil health and air quality
• Lower water needs and better water quality
• Improved pest control
• Better pollination by diverse pollinators
• Diversified or alternative income streams (variety of assets, e.g., flowers, oils, spices and herbs, coffee cherries, mushrooms, nuts, wood, fibers)
• Reduced soil erosion
• Aid in reclaiming fragile or marginal lands for productive purposes

Spades is a strong advocate of agroforestry and includes it in integrated landscape zones.

Growers and nations use a variety of planting methods, among them bare-root transfers, Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR), Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), seed balls, nursery seedlings, and mangrove propagule planting.

We emphasize growth because it is our desire to create sustainable wins for people, the environment, and economics.

Anyone can plant a tree, anywhere. What matters for long-term sustainability is the ecological fit of the trees. Plantation apple farmers, for example, know that most apples require cross-pollination from a different variety of the same fruit species to produce a crop, otherwise, they’re doomed to fail. Tree selection is critical. We consider the goals and objectives of a specific project to select the tree species that will have the greatest impact and offer the greatest value for the surrounding environment, people, and economy. Selection takes into account climate change because former adapted species may no longer thrive in current conditions. Terrain, heat and cold, availability of water, and soil are evaluated, as are a species’ ecosystem needs, such as its position in a canopy, native habitats, and soil type(s). If trees are not fit for their environment, growth and survival are seriously jeopardized. Investments are put at greater risk.

See Ecofit.

Ecofit biotechnology predicts tree species growth success based on research results across 400 species in 30 ecosystems.

There is no single solution to monitor restoration efforts, time from planning, to planting, and through tree maturation. Therefore, Spades integrates best-of-breed solutions from each required area, including innovative geospatial AI to geospatial surveys, mapping and GIS, and data and analytics, and bundles them as part of the offering in each project. World-class Saas and TaaS platforms verify performance against standards and agreed-upon contracts, tracks results, and reports to all stakeholders.

• SaaS: Software as a Service, or SaaS, is a way of delivering critical software services over the internet, as a service instead of a product. Other names for it are hosted software, on-demand software, and web-based software. The applications run on the SaaS provider’s servers so its customers do not have to purchase hardware or software; all that is needed is an internet connection and a license or subscription to use the software.
• TaaS: Technology as a Service, or TaaS, allows technology and tech-related business services to be outsourced. Often arranged as a subscription-based payment model, different from a lease or license, it provides access to critical, high-performing functions and/or applications. The benefit of using TaaS apps are that they are specialized, comprehensive, flexible, scalable, and complement Spades’ strengths. Tracking-as-a-Service is also a type of TaaS used by Spades.

• 1 hectare = 10,000 square meters, 2.471 acres, or 107, 637 square feet
• 1 acre = 0.404686 hectares, or 43560 square feet, or 4046.86 square meters
• 1 million hectares = 2,471,050 acres or 10,000,000,000 square meters
• 1 million acres = 404,686 hectares or 4,046,860,000 square meters

A hectare is a common unit of the metric system used to measure land in many places around the world, especially for land ownership, agriculture, and forestry. The acre measurement unit is used in the U.S.A. and in Imperial systems.

Members of the Spades’ team have spent decades working in blended capital, impact investing, and large investments.

Trees and forests vary widely in the amount of carbon they can store. Climate, species composition, disturbance history, size of the forest, and other factors must all be taken into consideration. The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that a medium growth coniferous or deciduous tree, planted in an urban setting and allowed to grow for 10 years, sequesters 23.2 and 38.0 lbs of carbon, respectively. The same agency, for a managed forest over 20 years, reports an average of 200 metric tons of carbon is stored per hectare. This is consistent with the results of our growing partner, WeForest, who reports their estimated carbon storage potential after 20-30 years of restoration ranges between 140 to 317 t CO2 per hectare. Redwood forests store over 2,500 t of carbon per hectare. Mangrove forests typically hold 335 t of carbon per hectare although a forest in the Yukatan Peninsula reportedly stockpiled up to about 2,800 metric tons of carbon per hectare in the soil.

Our publication, Carbon Offsets: Monetizing Regreening for Climate Mitigation, provides an overview of carbon cap-and-trade compliance markets, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), voluntary carbon markets, add-on credits, and tree-carbon financial examples for habitats, FMNR, timber, orchards, and mangroves. Read Balanced Finance: Capturing an Opportunity, for information on growth carbon, protected carbon, blue carbon, sustainable timber, agroforestry, and other forest-related asset classes beyond carbon.

The capitalization structure supports a spectrum of investors, including corporations, governments, development finance institutions, philanthropic organizations, high-net-worth individuals, private equity, venture capital, bonds, and others. Learn about Spades’ capitalization structure in Balanced Finance: Capturing an Opportunity and in Project Structures and Returns.

If you want to learn more about investing, or have investor relations questions, please email investor.Relations@spades.life.

We appreciate the kind offer, however, Spades is a for-profit organization so donations are not tax-deductible. We can, however, accept charitable contributions through our nonprofit sister organization, Cheetah Development. Donations can be mailed to Cheetah Development, 4420 Vandervork Ave Minneapolis MN 55436-1431. Minneapolis, MN 55436.

We seek to partner with organizations that have a track record of successfully regrowing millions of trees over several years. We are interested in participating in the design concept phase of projects that could scale to ten million trees in one location in the upcoming years, with habitat protection.

If this describes your organization and project, please complete this form or email Joy Hazucha@spades.life to describe your accomplishments and your project concept.

A list of our regreening partners and others in our network can be found on our Partners page. Specific projects are announced on the Projects and Opportunities page as permission to post new activities is received.

We are interested in projects anywhere in the world where regrowing trees can have a positive impact. This requires a minimum of ten million trees in one location over several years.

We would be delighted to review projects that meet these requirements. Please submit project inquiries in the form. Include location, size, and objectives of the project. Thank you.

We are interested in projects where regrowing trees can have a positive impact, with a minimum of ten million trees in one location over several years. We can help design it to appeal to investors, and we can help raise funds for those that meet the requirements.

Inquiries about starting or raising funding for new projects should be made below. Please include location, size, and objectives of the project. Formal RFPs are not required.

We are pleased to learn of your interest in volunteering. Our world needs people who care for it and others. Please tell us about your volunteer idea, including your related experience, by completing this form.  A member of our team will contact you.

Spades Conflict of Interest Policy protects this organization’s interest when it is contemplating entering into a transaction or arrangement that might benefit the private interest of an officer or director of the Organization or might result in a possible excess benefit transaction. This policy is intended to supplement but not replace any applicable state and federal laws governing conflict of interest applicable to for-profit benefit corporations. This policy applies to all companies worldwide wherein Spades, SBC has management control or controlling shares.

In keeping with its values of justice, trueness, and transparency, Spades is committed to high standards of ethical, moral, and legal business conduct. Spades is further dedicated to acting in good faith with those employees, contractors, and volunteers who raise concerns regarding incorrect financial reporting, unlawful activity, or otherwise improper conduct. This Whistleblower Policy aims to provide employees, contractors and volunteers with an avenue for raising such concerns, and to reassure such persons that they will be protected from reprisal or victimization as a consequence of reporting the alleged wrongdoing of any officer, director, employee, or agent of Spades.

Raymond (Ray) Menard, is the founder and CEO of Spades. Ray brings worldwide C-suite leadership experience across multiple industries, countries, and cultures, including direct engagement with smallholder farmers in Africa. He casts the climate change mitigation company’s mission and vision, leads the development of breakthrough solutions to plant trees at a massive scale, and oversees all facets of the business. He has led dozens of company and product launches, plus turnarounds, mergers, and acquisitions. His national leadership in monitoring and tracking solutions led to his selection to help lead the cleanup of the World Trade Center disaster in New York City. His work in Geographic Information Systems includes developing large enterprise-scale monitoring solutions for such services. He holds more than 20 patents in several different technology areas.

The Spades management team and co-founders are experts and innovators in environmental, social, economic, and technology-based solutions. Their biographies can be found on our website. Additional background on our team is available on LinkedIn.

Innovators in Environmental, Social, Economic, and Technology-Based Solutions