Pennybridge Creative
Paul Balfe Founder

Hometree’s purpose is land regeneration, how does this align with your company/organisation?
As a small design studio, our environmental impact is quite small, however, the brands and campaigns that we build for our clients often aren’t as environmentally conscious. Planting trees is not only important for us to offset the environmental impact of our client projects but also to instill this rationale into their brand or business at start-up rather than down the line. We want to create change in our industry and our partnership with Hometree is the first step in many.

What is inspiring you to work with a regeneration process like Hometree?
We’ve looked up to the team at Hometree for some time for their dedication and passion towards creating a better, more sustainable world for the future. It would have been easy for us to partner with similar companies in Australia but ultimately, we share the same values and interests as the team at Hometree and their transparency in what they do and their willingness to have people come and help, means that we are confident in the work that they are doing.

Some of the trees you are planting you will not see mature, together we are working towards more abundant and biodiverse future, in three or four sentences please describe what you would like to invite into the future?
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.”

Other than Hometree can you celebrate other ways you or your organisation supports a healthier environment?
We are actively trying to move our clients onto sustainable or recycling packaging and products and trying to educate them on the impacts that their businesses are having on the environment. Once we have a consistent and successful way of achieving this, we are going to look to share this with our peers/competition in the hope that it will have a flow-on effect throughout the whole industry.

Do you have a memory that to share about a tree/forests/nature?
When I was around 4 or 5 I remember pretending to cut down the tree out the front of our house by hitting it with a stick and when my auld fella came home he got angry at me and explained that the damage I did to the tree wouldn't heal like our skin would but would be a constant scar on the tree. He was right and every time I came home from school or went into the treehouse for years after I would always look at that scar on the tree and be disgusted that I had done something like that to something that had given me shelter and refuge. It really implanted in me that trees are living things that bring beauty into our world and not to take that for granted.

Have there been any key moments that you can share about how you or your organisation decided to support a more abundant and healthier world?
We've been doing a lot of work with clients in the motorsport industry and realised that some of the products we were producing didn't align with our core values and while we can't change the motorsport industry overnight, we could start with a few quick wins and hopefully breed a culture that looked at the environmental impact where possible.

We’d love to hear and share any key lessons that life has taught you, in as little or man words as you like.
As a keen surfer, I am constantly taught that mother nature has the final say and not us. Understand that everything you do has an impact and if you take the wrong line you can go from having the ride of your life to being driven into the deep dark. Leave everywhere better than how you found it.