Measurable Change: refurbed’s High-Impact Projects for a Healthier Planet
by Katrin Müller, on Dec 17, 2025Building a Platform for Sustainable Products and Services
refurbed is on a mission: to build the leading platform for sustainable products and services.
We want to make refurbished products accessible to everyone – because for our planet to remain within healthy boundaries, we need to make our consumption patterns more circular.
Refurbished products should become the first choice: they are not only more affordable, but also help avoid significant amounts of emissions, water usage, e-waste, and material resources compared to new products (based on the environmental impact data from our ISO 14040/44 verified calculation model).
From Tree Planting to a Comprehensive Impact Portfolio
As part of our environmental impact strategy, we are committed to measuring and reducing our own footprint. Beyond that, we wanted to go one step further – by supporting environmental projects outside our direct value chain.
Our journey began in 2017, when we partnered with internationally renowned NGOs to plant a tree for every product sold on refurbed. This initiative has led to over 6.6 million trees planted to date.
By the end of 2023, we realized it was time for change. While our tree planting initiative continues with our Irish partner Reforest Nation until the end of 2025, we learned that tree planting alone is not the most impactful approach. So, we returned to the drawing board and developed a new Impact Portfolio of environmental projects designed to maximize our positive impact.
Our Impact Portfolio: Driving Change Across Three Key Areas
Since early 2024 we have been financing a range of highly impactful and long-lasting environmental projects across three diverse areas:
- Landscape restoration
- Innovative carbon removals
- E-waste recycling Global South
For each project we selected trusted partners using high-quality standards of certification.
| # | Area | Project | Partner | Purpose | Total impact 2024 + 2025 (forecasted) | Learn more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Landscape restoration | Ecosystem Restoration Ethiopia | myclimate | Community-led reforestation in northern Ethiopia to store carbon, enhance biodiversity, and create income. | 9.597 t CO2e removed | https://www.refurbed.ie/a/transforming-landscape-ethiotrees/ |
| 2 | Innovative carbon removals | Novocarbo Biochar Germany | Patch.io | Pyrogenic carbon capture and sequestration (PyCCS) to lock carbon in biochar. | 240 t CO2e | https://www.refurbed.ie/a/biochar-removing-carbon/ |
| 3 | Innovative carbon removals | Klim Soil Carbon Sequestration | Patch.io | Supporting farmers to adopt regenerative practices that enrich biodiversity and store carbon. | 387 t CO2e captured | — |
| 4 | Innovative carbon removals | Walsenburg Biomass Burial | Patch.io | Sequestering carbon from waste wood gathered through local fire mitigation activities. | 151 t CO2e captured | — |
| 5 | Innovative carbon removals | Enhanced Weathering Bulgaria | Carbony | Accelerating natural carbon removal by applying crushed silicate rocks to soil. | 161 t CO2e captured | https://www.refurbed.ie/a/rock-weathering-removing-carbon/ |
| 6 | E-waste recycling Global South | E-waste recycling Global South | Minimise | Supporting the shift from informal recycling sector towards safer and environmentally-friendlier formal recycling practices through training, safety gear, proper tools and documentation. | 17.700 kg of e-waste collected | https://www.refurbed.ie/a/united-against-e-waste/ |
| 7 | Landscape restoration | Tree Planting Ireland | Reforest Nation | Planting native trees in Ireland to absorb carbon and enhance biodiversity. | ~5.000 trees planted | — |
Staying open of strategic shifts
While our commitment to supporting environmental projects remains, we also need to stay flexible. In 2025, we narrowed our portfolio to focus on the most impactful solutions aligned with our broader environmental strategy.
For our E-waste recycling project in the Global South with minimise, we also made a small but highly impactful change in 2025: instead of only collecting phones in 2024 (weighing ~2,500 kg), we decided to switch to collecting e-waste overall. This allowed us to collect over five times more e-waste (~15,000 kg) while using less than half the funds.
Collecting scrap phones is impactful, but counting and tracking individual devices is very labor intensive. By focusing on the collected weight rather than the number of devices, refurbed contributed to recycling 10 times more e-waste per Euro in 2025, compared to 2024. Stefan de Linde, Founder of minimise
Looking Ahead: Staying Bold and Impactful
Looking ahead we are not standing still, but always want to support the most promising and impactful ideas – all while making sure we enable our partners to count on us and grow in a sustainable way. We believe that it takes bold and courageous first-movers to make a change. We base this on our own experience: Just a few years ago, we had to explain what refurbishing was and gain our customers trust. Today, we live in a world where refurbished products are much more known and accepted.
You make it possible
Finally, it is important for us that our customers understand: none of this would be possible without them. By winning the trust of more customers across Europe we can not only scale the refurbishment sector and reduce our environmental footprint compared to new products, but we can also finance highly impactful projects across the globe.
Stay tuned for more insights on our impact investments and read more about Sustainability at refurbed.
