Corporate Sustainability Partnership Program

The CRTI Corporate Sustainability Partnership Program connects sustainability-minded corporations with impactful projects and dedicated partners.

By partnering with CRTI, companies have the opportunity to engage in a variety of projects, offering flexibility in investment and commitment levels. Options include supporting an existing program or creating a new project that supports organizational goals and priorities.

Your partnership will result in a regional impact that will yield benefits to Chicago area communities for generations to come.

CRTI Partnerships offer:

Value

By leveraging CRTI’s extensive network and expertise, your investment will result in maximum impact.
Verification

Qualifying projects are eligible for Carbon+ credits and/or Impact Certification through City Forest Credits, providing third-party verification of results.
Recognition

CRTI will provide you with all the communications assets necessary to promote your participation in the program to your stakeholders, driving increased brand value.
Network

CRTI is a consortium of more than 200 local and national institutions. This collaborative, cross-functional network designs and executes large-scale projects that leverage efficiencies to improve the regional canopy.

Support

The CRTI Corporate Sustainability Partnership Program was developed through the generous support of the Walder Foundation.

The Foundation was established by Joseph and Elizabeth Walder to address critical issues impacting our world. The Foundation’s five areas of focus—science innovation, environmental sustainability, the performing arts, migration and immigrant communities, and Jewish life—are an extension of the Walders’ lifelong passions, interests, and their personal and professional experiences.

Corporations can become the missing link between under-resourced communities and the critical benefits a robust urban canopy can generate.

Urban trees are critical infrastructure, just like roads, storm sewers, or water mains. Trees provide countless benefits, including climate change mitigation, improved air and water quality, stormwater run-off reduction, cooler streets and buildings, improved mental and physical health, and wildlife habitat.

The Chicago region’s tree canopy has been devastated by pests, disease, and suburban sprawl, leaving community tree coverage far below the national average for urban areas, and resulting in far fewer benefits and services. The current state of and cumulative loss in trees and green space is even more pronounced in under-resourced, vulnerable communities. In these areas, systemic injustices and chronic underfunding have left many citizens without the health, environmental, and economic benefits of a robust tree canopy.

Corporations can provide necessary resources to restore and expand our regional canopy. Contributions will facilitate urgently needed services in areas where their employees and customers live or work. At the same time, the projects can also satisfy a variety of corporate environmental and social objectives.

Corporations can be a driving force in developing a greener, healthier, more equitable Chicago region by supporting high-impact projects such as tree plantings, job training programs, and woodland ecosystem restorations.

Through its network of more than 200 partner organizations, CRTI leverages synergies and orchestrates projects that achieve measurable positive impacts. Through CRTI, corporate funding can facilitate projects that cash-strapped communities simply can’t undertake alone.

This situation leads to a win for corporations seeking to make demonstrable impacts to their sustainability goals and build their brand, a win for Chicago’s urban forest, and most important, a win for the communities served by the projects.

CRTI projects have a positive impact on:

air and water quality,
water conservation,
climate change,
energy conservation,
heat islands,
habitat and biodiversity
human health and equity
community engagement, and more.

Join a robust consortium of partners.

CRTI is a well-established consortium of over 200 (and growing) organizations committed to building a greener, healthier, more equitable Chicago region through the planting and care of trees. CRTI also provides training, guidance, and resources to communities and professionals.

Partners include regional leaders such as The Morton Arboretum, Openlands, the Forest Preserves of Cook County, and the Chicago Department of Public Health, among other leading national and local organizations and agencies, as well as communities, public landowners, and citizen advocates.