THE KICKOFF:
From the start, Derrick Emsley was an environmentalist.
At the age of 15, he and his brother Kalen started a
company called Greenfield Carbon Offsetters, which
ended up raising "a couple million dollars" and planting
150,000 trees. Later, he and his cousin Stephen Emsley,
along with fellow co-founder David Luba, started an
ethical apparel brand, Tentree—in which every item
sold equated to ten trees planted. Then, in 2022, the
team developed Veritree, a B2B nature-tech platform
that helps businesses take steps to restore forests by
planting trees, then monitoring the progress through
technology, data and on-the-ground expertise.
For Luba, head of partnerships, "selling with emotion
and impact first" is the key to success. "Everyone out
there can create a product," he says, "but what is the
heart and soul behind the product?"
ACTION PLAN:
In just three and a half years, Veritree has embedded
its platform in over 20,000 businesses and secured
commitments to plant more than 100 million trees with
partners like Samsung, Telus, Sleep Country, BMO and
Shangri-La. Now, it's ramping up efforts toward a goal
of a billion trees by 2030. Yes, with a B.
"I became more of a believer in the vision—I wasn't
a zealot to begin with—but seeing how big the problem
is, and that we can really impact and affect change, that
spoke to me over time," says Kambli, the company's
chief operating officer.
CLOSING STATEMENT:
The old adage "money doesn't grow on trees" need not
apply here—because planting those trees has certainly
proved to have a good return on investment. Veritree's
platform gives companies a full suite of technology nec-
essary to manage and implement restoration projects.
Par tnerships with global brands like Alibaba
and Hopper have fuelled 6,000 percent revenue
growth since 2021—with 95 percent coming from
return customers.
"Business has gone from extractive [to when] sus-
tainability came into vogue in the '70s and '80s. The
idea was 'do less bad,' and then, in the last decade, it
started to transition to this idea of net zero or circular,
which is 'do no bad,'" says Derrick Emsley. "Our belief
is that the future of business is restorative: it's not just
about creating a business that does less bad, it's about
creating businesses that do more good."–K.A.
FINALIST
ENTREPRENEUR
OF
THE
YEAR
David Luba H E AD O F PAR TN ERS H I PS & C O-FOU N D ER;
Stephen Emsley D I R ECTO R O F I N N OVATIO N & C O FOU N D ER;
Derrick Emsley C EO & C O-FOU N D ER; Vik Kambli C OO;
V E R ITR E E
How do you celebrate
your achievements?
VK: I'm not the best at
this. I'm usually onto the
next thing. I'm a firm
believer that yesterday's
dinner doesn't keep me
nourished tomorrow.
DE: The accomplishments
we celebrate are mainly
driven by the number of
trees we plant: 50MM,
100MM, et cetera. We
tend to celebrate by doing
what we call "barley
hoppers," where we treat
local breweries as planting
sites and the team goes
around in teams to have
drinks and collect
"evidence" of the beers
drunk (or "trees planted").
RAPID
FIRE
40 | BC B U S I N E SS NOVEM B ER/ D ECEM B ER 2025
