About

OUR MISSION

Our mission is a cliché, we want to make the world a better place. Sure, lots of people say that and companies are no different, so why believe us? 

Well for starters you're here for rolling papers right?

What if I told you we are a paper company, we just happened to decide to start with rolling papers.

Don't get me wrong, I use them, I consider myself a Business Hippy. I have a joke, I've said once: "a lot of hippies try and do business but not all of them are Business Hippies". Ya I know, its not funny, that's why I've only told it once, but another Business Hippy I know got a chuckle cause we are cool like that.

I, like many, wanted to make the world a better place and fought in a lot of different directions looking for that thing before finally landing in a conversation with a man that became my mentor who told me about paper being made from post consumer waste material. 

Don't know what that is? Don't worry, neither did I, hours of research later I found out that much of the food elements we produce have a huge amount of waste, literally tons and tons and TONS of material that just gets thrown away or burned. I remember speaking to a gentleman I met in Thailand from the Philippines. He told me of of this material being stacked high at farms on hills and being bruned to ash, it rising into the sky and falling on the villages below, that those in the villages would look up upon the "black snow" falling on them, and like the "snow", many would fall ill.

If all of this could be used for paper and paper products then why are we cutting down trees to light on fire as rolling papers? Throwing them away as coffee cups? Printing a report out at work, just to toss in the paper recycling which eventually after enough cycles turns to waste as well. 

It made no sense, and as I dug deeper, learned more, and nerded out about paper, paper products, and the industry, I ultimately came upon hemp. A fraction of the time, energy and resources to grow and sustain, yet not being utilized out side of a few products. Like rolling papers.

And if you use rolling papers, you likely care about the planet and people, and probably get where I'm coming from.

So Trees rolling papers is our first product, we are going to bring change to the paper industry at large, we are going to save trees, rebuild the worlds forests, help those less fortunate and have a great time doing it.

I just want to do something I love and leave this world 1% better then when I got here, and that starts with our first packs of papers.

Trees rolling papers are held to an exceptionally high standard. In fact we spent 9 months contacting virtually everyone producing them on the planet, we digitally searched more them 34 countries, contacted every major producer of every major brand, stayed up to 4am for meeting with Europe, dug into every company. When none of them met my standards, I moved along, and went after the paper these companies were using and investigating documents on the farms that the hemp was harvested from.

I will put Trees' paper up against anyone's in the world. Our paper is made from certified organic hemp from certified sustainable and cruelty free farms in France and imprinted with a light and minimal style water mark ensuring a slow burn. 

After much research and feedback on peoples experience with rolling papers, it was clear many companies sacrificed function when it came to adhesives. Forgetting the most important thing when choosing an adhesive (after it being safe for consumption): that it sticks and stays stuck! 

Hence, we chose to blend the new school of hemp paper with the old school of Arabic gum, an adhesive that has stood the test of time and offers superior function. 

The final element of Trees rolling papers is the tree we plant for you.

Honestly, I choose to do this for three reasons: first, I spent years going to a soul crushing office job, the only "motivator" was the pay cheque and the only motivator to work harder was a commission cheque and to me those were never motivating.

What's motivating to me is doing something good for others. I've often found myself more inclined to help others with their projects then do my own, because I love to help, love to help other succeed and with every pack planting a tree, I know its helping the world.

It's helping rebuild areas that were clear cut by tree poachers, or had to be used up by a struggling village.

It's helping people in need as the reforestation projects we are partnered with employ the local (severely) impoverished people to do the planting at beyond fair wages that help pull whole villages and communities out of poverty, giving them the money they need to send their children to school, buy food, medicine, and help their extended families. All the while teaching them environmental stewardship and conservation to prevent these things from ever happening again.

Second is because I believe if one pack plants a tree and one pack doesn't and the pack that plants a tree's quality is equal or better, then you will buy it.  And by you buying it I get to keep doing this and if I get to keep doing this then I will keep working towards what I said earlier and spread Trees into other areas of the paper industry and change everything I can, from copy paper, to take out containers, to coffee cups all while planting trees and helping people.

I have other plans and ideas that no one in the rolling paper industry is doing too, and with your support I will do my very best to bring you some really cool things in the future.

The final reason is the philosophy of my father, "to measure success in smiles". When you purchase a pack and feel the real craft paper in your hand, when you see our seal for "one tree planted for every pack", when you flip over the back and see we are a Canadian company and when you open the pack and read about your tree and what happens when its planted and make the choice to use Trees and roll up your herb, see it staying sealed, burning well, and tasting like it should and you give that little nod, the smiles in those moments, that feeling that you made the right choice, that your choice matters and is going to make a difference in the world. That to me is success.

Being able to do something that helps create that smile, and that feeling in the world is success to me. The world needs more of that, that light that's in all of us, that spark! And I hope it ignites a great change in our world for the better of us all.

Thank you, and God bless.

Sincerely, 

David Baxter


OR 

I set out years ago (2014) to create products from sustainable materials, I was young, inexperienced, and pulled in many directions of interest. When it came time to produce our first offering (it wasn't rolling papers btw!) the minimum order sizes jumped up on me and I was discouraged because I hadn't the financial means to do what I wanted to bring to the world, I also turned down investors as I did not want to sacrifice the integrity of the vision.
With bringing in products made from new or different materials the hardest part is educating people why its better, why its important to choose the new over the old, and I wanted something to help cut through that.

I thought of a scale and with sustainable products the weight of the negative impact is less but still exists, and realizing it was impossible to have zero impact, I realized what if we could have a positive one too?

Then began my quest for that positive impact, something that would tip the scales so the the overall impact of the item would be a net positive on the planet.

Then it dawned on me, we are trying to stop using trees for paper products, why not plant one instead? Then our paper products would do something others don't, people will get that right away and bring attention and then the education about hemp and post consumer waste materials being better can begin.
So after some months we made our first partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects, we saw their work, saw the other companies who trusted them, saw the third party audits and new they were the ones to work with.
But what about our product? We thought small and something that a lot of people would use, we wanted it to be a small item to show even a small product can have a big impact.

Then it hit me, rolling papers! The item was literally starring me right in the face.
After several months talking with literally everyone producing papers on the planet we came up empty. Many late night calls to Europe later..... several large companies who produce ALL the major brands on the planet were all nice enough to say "yes we produce papers for people", only to find out everything about me, my company, our vision, the tree planting and then say "ya we actually don't do it", I noticed a trend and suspected them just gathering information about me to be aware of what their competition was doing. This was confirmed on a call with the national director in Canada for a brand that will remain nameless who said that "if I was in Europe then they would but not in North America". When I asked "Why, them or no one seemed willing" to do so the response was "they don't want to give up North American market share to people".

Now disillusioned and realizing that the North American rolling paper industry is monopolized by a couple organizations (believe me that brand name you like so much, they own several other brands, sure they offer a "eco" product, but they don't really care, they have several other brands that don't give a crap, they just "eco-wash" a pack so that people who care about the planet will buy) I kept looking.

I flipped how I went about things at that point, tracked down hemp that was organic and whos farms were certified sustainable, the certificates also stated they were cruelty free. Got natural Arabic gun for the adhesive , cause everyone says the same thing about certain brands not sticking right, or coming undone. Who wants a paper that doesn't do what its supposed to do? not me that's for sure.

From there we got our partnership with Eden and here we are, The Pack That Plants a Tree, Trees Rolling Papers.