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.

GCash Forest green heroes prevent 500 million grams of carbon emissions

Keyboard warriors have somehow had a bad rep, but there are times when it’s a good thing to let your fingers do the fighting—especially when it could save the only home you know. 

GCash users who have tapped into GCash Forest, the personal carbon tracker within the mobile app, have helped avoid carbon emissions by adopting more eco-conscious lifestyles. Since its launch in June, GCash Forest counts more than 300 million grams of carbon emissions prevented through green actions monitored by the GCash app.

“Taken together, the simple changes we make in our daily lives—such as walking instead of driving, going paperless, cultivating our own backyard garden, recycling and upcycling—make a difference to our planet,” Mynt’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Manguera said.

There are now more than 933,000 users of GCash Forest, and they earn green energy points whenever they choose actions that would mean less carbon emissions. These points let them plant a virtual tree in GCash Forest, which grows with every green activity. 

700,000 Filipinos using GCash Forest to help save watershed

More than 700,000 GCash users have joined the movement to plant trees through GCash Forest, an important carbon tracking feature of GCash, to help save the watershed that supplies water to Metro Manila. 

Ney Villaseñor, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Mynt, which runs the country’s leading mobile wallet, said 756,370 people have signed up to collect green energy through GCash Forest as of August 19. That translates to almost 400,000 people using the new feature every month since its launch on June 25. 

GCash Forest is a personal carbon account that tracks how much emission people have avoided by living more consciously. “Green” activities—such as walking, bringing eco-bags and own utensils, going cashless, reducing paper use—earn users energy points. When they have enough points, they get to plant a virtual tree in GCash Forest, which GCash will match with a real, native tree planted at the Ipo watershed.