Sustainability at Extra Ed.

Extra Ed has the privileged position of working with young people—fostering their development, education and growth. We take this responsibility seriously. When delivering our programs we always aim to make positive contributions to the future of our participants.

However, when we envision this future a shadow looms large: the climate crisis. We believe that combatting this crisis is imperative for governments, organizations and individuals. We all must join together in the struggle against human-made environmental damage if we are to ensure that the next generations have as bright a future as possible.

Extra Ed has always tried to do our part for the environment, with efforts such as: our paper reuse program, up-cycling materials into art and craft projects, offering environmental-themed programming, and participating in park and playground clean ups.

But come 2017, we recognized that we should do more. We wanted to take more proactive steps towards change, and so, we introduced a program whose long term impact would align with our ethos of bringing positive change to the future: the Extra Ed Tree Program.

The concept of our program is simple: Extra Ed plants a tree for every enrolment in our programs.

Why trees? The benefits are myriad: trees combat climate change by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere; trees restore human-damaged landscapes, bolstering ecosystems and providing habitats to wildlife; trees provide all the social and economic benefits that increased green spaces provide.

Not only is the practical impact of tree planting clear, but as an organization that contributes to the growth of young minds, trees were a recognizable metaphor for our principles. As our trees mature they will provide on-going benefits that last for decades, holding in them the reminder of the long-ago role Extra Ed played in nurturing their early days—exactly what we hope to achieve with our programs.

As of year-end 2023, we are proud to have planted 29,364 trees. 2024 is on track to increase that number dramatically. Please keep up-to-date with our progress via our tree counter at the footer of our website!

History of the program.

Our Tree Program has come a long way. At its outset, we took an active role in the germinating and planting of each tree. We grew our own saplings and would delivery them to every participant in our programs that wanted one. This way, we reasoned, they could learn about the planting process, get their hands dirty, and see the positive impact of their contributions firsthand.

In time, unfortunately, we came to question the efficacy of this approach.

One of the biggest challenges of tree planting is survival. We learned that without an infrastructure in place to care for and maintain our freshly planted saplings it was unlikely that many were taking root and thriving.

Not only were our tree survival rates unquantifiable but we were faced with another issue:our program registration numbers were climbing. Our team could not keep up with this demand for saplings. And so, we reached a point where we needed to rethink the program significantly. The solution: in 2020 we partnered with Friends of the Rouge Watershed (FRW).

Our first tree-planting day laid the foundation for what has become an ongoing relationship. As an organization that rectifies human-caused damage, that involves school groups and organizations in their preservation efforts, and that has the infrastructure in place to ensure an 80% tree-survival rate, FRW was clearly the partner that we needed to take our Tree Program to the next level.

As of 2023 we have planted over 9100 trees with FRW, and counting. The expertise that they bring as our local tree-planting partner ensures that these trees are in good hands, with the care and maintenance to guarantee the continued growth (both physical and metaphorical) of our Tree Program.

For our part, Extra Ed is proud to be playing a small role in the profound impact that FRW have had all across the Rouge Watershed, which includes Rouge National Urban Park, the largest urban park in North America.

With a great relationship in place with our local partner, FRW, early 2023 found us also looking to identify opportunities for our program to create an impact further afield. That’s when we became aware of the Friends of Usambara Society (FoU) and their extraordinary efforts to counter the loss of the African Rainforest ecosystem in northern Tanzania.

Not only does FoU combat deforestation in the climate-change threatened Eastern Arc Mountains Biodiversity Hotspot, but FoU’s programs provide their region with many social and economic benefits. They are significantly bolstering their local eco-tourism industry through reforestation, creating hundreds of jobs which support local families (offering numerous opportunities to women, in particular), and running large educational programs which teach students firsthand that damaged landscapes can be repaired, and that positive change is possible.

In our first year of working together, Extra Ed has been a grateful contributor to all of FoU’s worthwhile endeavours listed above—not to mention the fact that they've planted over 13,000 trees on our behalf!

Carbon Capture Impact

As an organization that teaches financial literacy, we certainly understand the longterm benefit of compound interest. Planting trees for carbon sequestration acts in a similar fashion. Not only do tress positively impact our environment year-in and year-out, but they progressively capture more and more carbon over time: they capture 1-2 kgs per year as they grow beyond saplings to over 25 kgs per year as they enter maturity, twenty years later.

Although we have made so much progress to date, there’s still much more room to grow. We have learned hard lessons about the care and maintenance required to ensure reasonable survival rates for our trees, and we have put that knowledge to work. In our early years we may not have achieved more than a 2% survival rate of the trees given out to registrants. That rate has improved dramatically. Our cumulative survival rate was 69% by 2023 and with FoU and FRW both maintaining survival rates over 80% we are set to reach new high-water marks for both number of trees planted and the survival rate of those trees during 2024.

Going forward, with our fantastic partners in place (and projecting a modest 10% YoY growth to our program) we are intent on reaching the goal of 25,000,000 kgs of carbon sequestered by 2036.

The Trees we Plant.

As of 2023, we have planted over 9,100 trees in the Rouge Watershed with FRW, over 13,000 trees in Tanzania with FoU and over 7,000 in and about the GTA with the participants of our programs.

In total we have planted over 25 different tree species between Ontario and Tanzania. Each species is chosen for the specific contributions it makes to its local ecosystem and for the social and economic benefits it provides. Learn more below about some of our most commonly planted trees.

In our community.

As an active member in the communities we serve through our school programs, camps, daycares, street fairs, and more, we do our best to bring a positive environmental message wherever we go. It goes without saying that our paper reuse program, our recycling and up-cycling efforts, and our environmental programming are integrated into all we do.

But looking beyond these efforts, we saw another area where we could be of assistance: removing litter and waste from our local parks and school playgrounds.

We have taken to organizing group clean-up days where our team descends on local parks, green spaces and school playgrounds (with trash bags at the ready) to give these spaces some extra care when they need it. Leaving our young people's spaces refuse-free and with refreshed gardens is a simple intervention, but a highly rewarding one.

We will continue to do this each and every year—so if your school is interested in a team of Extra Ed staff and volunteers to come and help out, please get in touch!

Some of our sustainability partners: