Turning a Tree-Planting Mission Into a Global Brand | Derrick Emsley | Tentree
On this episode of Honest Ecommerce, we have Derrick Emsley, Co-founder and CEO of Tentree and Co-founder of Veritree. Derrick is a mission-driven founder who turned a passion for reforestation into a globally recognized apparel brand that plants ten trees for every product sold, nearly 100 million trees and counting. We talk about building a purpose-led brand from day one, using community and values to scale without paid ads, launching a tech platform to bring transparency to reforestation, and so much more!
Honest Ecommerce · Chase Clymer with Derrick Emsley
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Show Notes
Derrick Emsley is the co-founder and CEO of Tentree, a purpose-driven lifestyle apparel brand that plants ten trees for every product sold. With a background in environmental stewardship, carbon markets, and sustainable business strategy, Derrick leads Tentree’s mission to make regeneration scalable through consumer action.
Since launching Tentree in 2012, Derrick has grown the brand into a category leader in sustainable apparel, helping plant nearly 100 million trees worldwide. Without relying heavily on paid media, his scaled impact through values-aligned partnerships, product storytelling, and community-powered growth. In 2021, he co-founded Veritree, a technology platform built to verify, monitor, and audit global reforestation with end-to-end transparency.
Grounded in climate impact and systems thinking, Derrick focuses on building businesses that convert everyday consumption into measurable environmental good. Whether guiding Tentree’s brand vision or driving tech innovation with Veritree, he offers a blueprint for founders' scaling mission with integrity, traceability, and long-term environmental ROI.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- [00:48] Intro
- [00:58] Naming the brand after the mission itself
- [01:55] Pivoting purpose into a consumer brand
- [03:54] Partnering with retailers to gain early traction
- [05:49] Running mission ops while scaling the brand
- [06:22] Building tech to verify real-world impact
- [08:22] Responding to unexpected product demand
- [10:10] Connecting funders to verified outcomes
- [11:35] Embedding impact to boost DTC performance
- [12:53] Electric Eye, Social Snowball, Portless, Reach & Zamp
- [20:15] Building a global supply chain from scratch
- [23:21] Balancing co-founder strengths from day one
- [24:10] Creating decision fatigue with too much choice
- [27:33] Leveraging impact as a growth advantage
Resources:
- Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
- Earth-First, sustainably made apparel that plant trees tentree.com/
- Verified reforestation projects for your business veritree.com/tree-planting
- Follow Derrick Emsley linkedin.com/in/derrickemsley
- Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect
- Drive revenue through affiliates & referrals socialsnowball.io/honest
- Revolutionize your inventory and fulfillment process portless.com/
- Level up your global sales withreach.com/honest
- Fully managed sales tax solution for Ecommerce brands zamp.com/honest
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