4041 trees donated to teamtrees.org

TL;DR - In order to maintain my long-term motivation on Burns Audio projects, I have decided to invest or donate all proceeds from sales towards bettering the environment and fighting climate change, effective retroactively.

This includes Apple app sales, which is this currently my primary source of revenue.

An important consequence of this is that Spectrum for iOS will no longer be free as of January 2020. For more information behind this decision read this entire post.

Some examples of where the money will be going includes:

  • donations to teamtrees.org until we get to 20 million trees :)
  • donations to conservancy groups like the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
  • investments in local renewable energy co-operatives. Profits from investments will be treated as additional Burns Audio revenue, and will be re-invested or donated likewise.

I reserve the right to modify this plan at any time in the future, and adhering to this plan is currently at my sole discretion. This may change if the project grows large enough to become a charitable foundation or whatever structure makes most sense.

That’s all you need to know! The rest of this post will describe why I’ve decided to make this change.

Why I’m investing all proceeds into helping the environment

About 4 months ago I pretty much gave up on iOS development. I was spending all my time researching climate change, and the related energy problems. I want to make a difference. I want to work on helping the environment.

Turns out helping the environment is hard! I’m a software developer, not a scientist. I didn’t find many projects where I felt like I could apply my existing skills and have a positive impact at the end of the day. This is a hobby project for me. I spend a few hours a day, when lucky, on Burns Audio projects.

With this structure I can continue working on what I enjoy doing, and make a positive impact. I can spend my time working on fun audio projects, and at the end of the month see that I made an impact. Thanks for helping make this possible.

Lets go build some cool shit, and sequester some carbon while we’re at it.