Mobile for All: Climate, Poverty & Protecting Rainforests

TREE-lighted!

Thanks to BetterWorld customers and in celebration of Climate Summit 2014, we are TREE-lighted to donate 10 reclaimed Android phones to Rainforest Connection. These smartphones will be used as rainforest guardians—kitted out and installed in trees to listen for unwelcome sounds like buzz saws and trucks.

Powered by solar panels and looking like robotic blooms, the devices listen 24-7 for unnatural sounds. If a bzzzzzz, vrrrrrrrm, or other disruptive sound is detected, they send an alert to local authorities to help thwart illegal logging.

Forests are amazing carbon sinks—holding as much as 283 gigatons of carbon, according to UNECE. And in keeping with our Mobile for All mission, the link between poverty and deforestation is well established; right alongside the link between quality of the environment and quality of life.

We’re positively delighted to support this innovative effort in celebration of Climate Summit 2014 and in the spirit of #mobileforgood.

Rainforest Connection workshop. Photo courtesy of RFCx

About Rainforest Connection

Rainforest Connection (RFCx) transforms waste (discarded smartphones) into a scalable real-time detection system that prevents forest destruction. Their objective is to prevent global deforestation with an affordable, scalable and effective system to intervene against illegal logging of rainforests, thereby helping solve some of the world’s most pressing problems: climate change and species extinction. Learn more at rfcx.org

Phone Drive!

Got an old smartphone gathering dust in a drawer? Rainforest Connection is looking for 50 additional phones. Send your old smartphones to sparrow and we’ll add them to the Rainforest Connection tree package and give you a $25 credit towards your next bill.

sparrow

1355 Market Street, Suite 488

San Francisco, CA 94114

Attention: Trees

Note: When you send in your old phone, remember to include a note with your name, sparrow mobile number (or account number) and email address associated with your account so we can apply your tree-phone credit.