About TROFACO
Our history, principles, and the team behind it all
The story of TROFACO
TROFACO was established in 2014 by Steffen Johnsen and Thomas O’Brien, who have worked in international development for many years. They saw a need for a new way of climate action outside the established schemes; a new approach with a focus on transparency, minimal administration costs, and plenty of benefits for the people most affected by climate change.
At first, TROFACO provided tree-based climate compensation mainly for DanChurchAid by planting trees in Cambodia. In 2016 we started working to identify a potential partner in Uganda, which took us many years, but it ended with us establishing a partnership with a very strong, national NGO by the name of CIDI.
With a trustworthy and hard-working partner by our side, we were ready to expand. The media learned of us, and aided by articles in the Danish newspapers Information and Politiken, we continued our growth as many new customers helped us take climate action.
In 2019, we evolved our database and verification system, launched a new website, set new strategies, and worked on becoming a scalable and healthy business. This also lead to a strategic partnership with DanChurchAid, where we together help businesses and private citizens alike take action and plant trees.
Today our efforts are concentrated around using our new ressources for providing better documentation, identifying areas for large-scale tree planting, and finding more clients willing to help us in our goal of re-planting as many trees as possible.
Not for profit
TROFACO is a socio-economic enterprise with the goal of having the largest possible positive impact on the global climate. Therefore, we strive to use as many of our resources as possible to plant trees. In practice, this means that we reduce all costs as much as possible and only use what is needed for our main goal: to plant trees.
Furthermore, we do not pay dividends or interests to any owners or shareholders and we keep our salaries to a minimum. As a result of this, the vast majority of funds we receive are used to do exactly what we intend it to – plant more trees. We publish all our audited financial reports here for all to see, as we aim to be as transparent about our work as possible.
Feel free to contact us, if you have any questions regarding our finances, and we will do our best to give you more insight!
Our team
Sune Johnsen
Sune is our IT expert. He is responsible for everything related to IT as well as being in charge of marketing. Sune is Steffen’s son and the youngest member of the team. He has lived in Cambodia and Vietnam for much of his childhood. He has a B.Sc. from IT University of Copenhagen.
Steffen Johnsen
As the CEO, Steffen is responsible for all operations.
He has 25 years of experience working with organised farmers, climate change, forest management and sustainable agriculture in many tropical countries. He holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, College of Natural Resources.
Huong Le
Huong is our verification expert. She is responsible forcollecting and measuring verification from our planting sites. She has worked with tropical farming and development for over 20 years. She has
Thomas O'Brien Kirk
As the CFO, Thomas is responsible for TROFACO’s economy and contracts with partners. Thomas has over 25 years of experience in international development and has lived many years in Tanzania, working – among other things – with farmers’ cooperatives. He is a certified auditor, business advisor and on the board of several Danish companies.
Get involved
Private
As a private customer you can make a direct impact on our climate by planting trees. We’ve made it easy for you, by making packages to suit all needs. Make a difference and take action today!
Business
We are always looking to help our corporate customers in the best way possible.