Amanda Bronkhorst — changing the world one tree at a time

Northwood College for Girls alumna, Amanda Bronkhorst describes her epiphany in 2019 as an accident. Perhaps one of the luckier accidents for our planet, as we found out. She picks up the story of how she was moved to set up JUST ONE Tree.

This feature was originally published in the 2025/26 edition of GDST Life Magazine

“It was a bit of an accident, really. The story is that I used to be a producer in advertising, something I’d been doing for about 20 years, flying around the world and having a wonderful time. Filming in amazing locations with amazing people.

Then I had my daughter. I had planned to go back into production, but we quickly realised, with my other half in film as well and often working away or being called up at the last minute, that our daughter wasn’t going to get to know me, or us, at all. So, I decided to put my career on pause until she started school, and we’d give three or four years of time just to bring her up. 

But when she was two, I sat down to have what I thought was going to be my first uninterrupted cup of tea in almost three years as she went down for her afternoon nap, picked up the newspaper and the article I happened to read was Greta Thunberg’s speech to Parliament. The speech that said we only have ten years left before we set off irreversible tipping points that will lead to the end of civilization as we know it. 

This was back in 2019,  when the government hadn’t truly acknowledged that we were in a climate emergency. We weren’t talking about it like we do now – it had felt like something that was going to happen in the future. And then suddenly this article was saying essentially that my daughter will only be 12 when it’s already too late. 

And I literally panicked. I was like a rabbit in the headlights, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I then discovered how cheap it is to plant a tree – only £1 – and I just thought, well, I’ll plant a tree for my daughter’s future… and I’m pretty sure my friends would too, for their children. And I thought maybe other parents would too. 

There are 10 million children in education in the UK alone so I started to wonder what would happen if we could plant a tree for each and every one of them. Then, walking past an estate agent, I began thinking what if a tree was  planted every time a property was sold? Or what if Glastonbury added £1 onto every one of their ticket sales? It wouldn’t cost them a penny, but that’s 200,000 trees right there. My brain just kept on going, ‘What if, what if, what if?’ Everything we do has a carbon footprint, so why aren’t we just automatically giving back to the planet?

With all this going on in my head, I thought I’d post my thoughts on Facebook and tell people about it. And I raised £75. So, I planted 75 trees. 

Then came the next thought: how hard can it be to design a website? Maybe I’ll give it a go and if I plant 900 trees in a year, and that’s where it ends, then that’s 900 more trees out there than if I hadn’t bothered. 

So, I did that – and in the first year, we planted three quarters of a million trees.”

This, of course, was just the beginning. 

Since 2019, JUST ONE Tree has taken on a life of its own. Under Amanda’s leadership, the team has planted over 5 million trees, capable of absorbing 1.6 million tonnes of CO2. It has planted trees in 16 countries around the world – from Peru to Madagascar – as well as oceanic sites, replenishing the seas’ mangrove and kelp forests. It is a member of the United Nations-backed UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and is supported by more than 500 carefully selected corporate partners. 

JUST ONE Tree remains crystal clear in its project goals – to tackle reforestation, ocean conservation and environmental education – the latter going back to the company’s genesis and the links Amanda originally made between climate emergency and our children’s futures. There are now more than 700 schools involved in the initiative around the world, with almost 400,000 trees so far having been planted by children. According to its latest data, GDST schools alone have planted over 20,000 trees to date. 

And the momentum keeps rolling. Its active education programme, which started with JUST ONE Tree Day, continues with an ever-growing focus on resourcing for schools to show children, parents and teachers the positive impact that just one person can have on the environment. As Amanda says, “According to a recent YouGov survey 78% of children suffer from anxiety about climate change and the future they will inherit, which is a frightening statistic. Our initiative aims to empower them through education and positive action. Our resources help teach them the lessons we never learned, so they don’t make the mistakes we’ve made, and they get to see that they can make a difference when they unite. Which in turn reduces their climate anxiety.” 

Not surprisingly, Amanda’s plans to return to the advertising world are now on indefinite hold. As JUST ONE Tree grows, so too do its ambitions. Along with building understanding through its schools and education programmes, the business is looking to grow the size of its corporate donations, as a step-change in donations could supercharge its planting rate and range around the world. 

And what of Amanda’s own future? “I’ll be happy when climate change is no longer an emergency, when we can start to see the impact of the things that people are doing. And actually, I can’t imagine this not being my life’s work, now,” she says. 

GDST Life Alumnae Magazine