Blue & Green needs your help
This crowdfunder will determine if Blue & Green Tomorrow will thrive under current ownership. We want to remain as a thorn in the side of the reckless and unsustainable, while also being a raucous voice for the responsible and sustainable. But we desperately need your help to do that.
What is Blue and Green Tomorrow?
The online publication Blue and Green Tomorrow is the UK’s most widely-read and fastest-growing sustainability magazine for investors and consumers. Since 2013, our growth has been rapid and we now need crowdfunding to survive the next four months while our underlying business model starts to pay off.
Our aim is to encourage our readers to buy from and invest in sustainable companies – those that balance the needs of people, planet and profit. We simplify sustainability, both the individuals and organisations working in it, and amplify their work to the largest number of possible investors and consumers.
Every day we write 18-25 articles on how to invest sustainably, travel responsibly, shop ethically and use cleaner sources of energy. Our most popular articles explain climate change, simplify investment and profile individuals and organisations that are leaders in sustainability. Articles that explore the rapid decline in bees, polar ice and forest cover are perennial favourites.
We also produce 12-14 in-depth guides each year on all aspects of sustainability.
Founded in 2010 our readership has quadrupled in the last 12 months, with 76,283 unique readers per month in June 2014, up 43% on the previous month. We are growing fast, and want to continue this growth long into the future.
We need our friends and readers' help to survive the next few months
Four years since we first stepped onto the foothills of sustainability, Blue & Green Tomorrow is at dire risk of falling silent.
Running a free magazine for the last four years has taken its toll on the founders' finances - we have literally put everything into making Blue & Green Tomorrow as big and noisy as it is. The truth is, we’ve finally run out of money to create the impartial content we provide free of charge and will have to stop this month.
We're four months away from being financially self sufficient, with some incredible deals in place which will finally make us viable over the next 12 months, but we’re not nearly close enough to continue without our readers' financial help in the short term.
We really want Blue & Green Tomorrow to be an impartial and raucous voice for all aspects of sustainability. We still have ambitious plans to be the loudest voice for sustainability - but can only do so with your help.
Every day we promote individuals and organisations doing good and helping make a more sustainable planet. They will lose a loud voice without our coverage.
How this funding will make a difference
We have big and ambitious plans for the money you pledge. We want to reach 250,000 readers in the UK and 250,000 readers overseas to spread the message of sustainable investing and living.
It is in investment we can make a real difference. For every dollar of GDP, $26 dollars is traded financially (data and image courtesy of De Spiegel).
Unsustainable, unethical and irresponsible investment and financial trade has shaped the world we live in today and today is shaping the world our children and grandchildren will live in tomorrow.
We want our readers to take seven sustainable steps in 2015 creating 3.5 million actions, from moving their money to more responsible banks, investing more sustainably, switching to renewable energy at home and at work, buying more fair trade, travelling responsibly, voting for a party with sustainably policies and backing a sustainable venture on crowdfunder.co.uk.
We need to rebuild Blue & Green Tomorrow as a scalable, fit-for-purpose website. We need it to be optimised for tablets and smartphones, with apps available on all mobile operating systems. We want to offer Blue & Green Tomorrow anywhere, anytime, on any device.
Time really is running out for our blue and green marble of a planet and we need to reach more readers quickly. That means promoting our website and e-newsletter to even more investors and consumers, encouraging more people to invest and spend sustainably.
We want to continue paying our graduate journalists a living wage, to give the young people most affected by our current unsustainable economic activity not only a start in their career but also an opportunity to frame the debate with their own future interests at heart.
That’s what we’d do with the money you pledge.
Please help us today.
How the money breaks down
The rewards
Are for both individuals (blue rewards) and organisations (green rewards), you can secure a heartfett thank you printed in every guide for as little as £12, an invitation to our "We made it party!" as a supporter or articles and promotion in Blue & Green Tomorrow. Here's a small selection of the rewards:
What the industry says about us
"By launching Blue & Green Tomorrow, Simon Leadbetter has done more than anyone else in the British media to promote a proper understanding of sustainable investment." Clare Brook of WHEB Group
"You are an original, fresh and high quality voice for Sustainable Investing at a time when we had all but disappeared from the financial media." Peter Michaelis of Alliance Trust
"Blue & Green - a new and credible force in the sustainability space." Claudia Quiroz of Quilter Cheviot
"Why would you recommend B> to a friend?" (comments from our reader survey August '14)