Words by Smiley Team
An eco-friendly contact sharing app that also plants trees has been launched to help tackle deforestation.
The mYcard is an app where subscribers can design an infinite number of contactless business cards to send to friends and colleagues.
But it also directly leads to the planting of trees – as 50% of the profits go into planting and rewilding projects.
“We are living in the midst of an ecological disaster and we need to make change happen and I believe the mYcard app is one way of making it happen," says Malachy Dunne who founded the app. "It is really easy to talk about an idea but it is not so easy to act on it."
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“The term climate change softens our understanding of the current environmental emergency, and many of us are in denial of this crisis or recognise it but don’t know how to make a difference," adds Malachy.
Malachy hopes that mYcard tackles deforestation at two ends: reducing paper waste by making business cards digital, and planting trees.
Around two million trees every year are cut down to make business cards, but 88% of business cards are thrown away within two weeks of printing, contributing to the crisis of paper waste. mYcard offers a solution to that problem, and pledges 50% of its profits into projects and charities that are trying to combat the loss of forests.
Malachy works as a therapist and encourages clients to connect with nature to boost their mental health, but notices how eco-anxiety is an escalating concern.
In October 2021, 43% of adults in Great Britain reported having been very or somewhat anxious about the future of the environment over the past month. The evidence suggests that more and more people are becoming worried about climate change and wanting to make individual changes to help.
As an environmentalist and horticulturist, Malacy is concerned by the low tree canopy cover in the UK (currently 13.2% of which half are native tree species) and the worrying decline in woodland wildlife.
A recent mYcard survey found that consumers are interested in finding out how to make changes for the better. Of those asked, 92% agreed that contactless business cards are more environmentally friendly than printed cards and climate change was of concern to 98% of those interviewed.
“People are aware of the worldwide problems caused by climate change but they do not know how they, as individuals, can make a difference," he says. "It is a real daily worry to so many.
“‘I want the app to have an influence not an impact, to help people connect and propagate ideas about how we can together make a difference in this emergency. And I want mYcard to plant one million trees, this is a legacy that we can all share.”
USE THE APP: To find out more about mYcard, visit: mycard.earth/
VOLUNTEER OR DONATE: The Woodland Trust plants woods and trees to combat climate change – find out more.
