Introducing the Flip Forest Initiative: Flip’s commitment to reforestation, in partnership with our hundreds of clients.
With Flip, the AI technology for customer service is pre-built for Retail, Healthcare and Transportation, meaning our clients do not have to employ their own tech nor build decision trees. Instead, Flip will plant trees on behalf of each of our clients.
For every existing Flip client, and every new brand that onboards, Flip plants 10 trees. For every year we celebrate together, another 10 trees will be added to the Flip forest.
If you’re a Flip client, we’re planting trees in your name. You’ll know exactly how many trees have been planted on your behalf through your partnership with Flip. This is how we celebrate impact at every stage: initial engagement, launch, and ongoing growth.
See the impact of the Flip Forest here.
AI IS GROWING FAST. SO IS ITS FOOTPRINT.
AI isn’t just changing how businesses operate. It’s also changing how much energy the world consumes.
Flip is the AI vendor taking action to do something positive at the exact moment the industry’s energy footprint is under scrutiny.
According to the International Energy Agency, data centers powering AI systems used about 1.5% of global energy consumption in 2024, and that number is projected to nearly double by 2030. Bloomberg reports that the number of data centers worldwide has nearly doubled in the last decade, and when combined, they now consume as much electricity per year as the entire country of Italy.
Per query, the footprint is small but relentless. Brookings Institution research estimates a single advanced AI query requires roughly 2.9 watt-hours of electricity, which is nearly ten times what a standard Google search demands. Multiply that by the billions of interactions processed globally each day, and the math compounds fast.
Most AI companies are simply racing to build. While Flip builds, we’re also giving something back.
SEE THE FLIP FOREST THROUGH THE TREES
The two biggest environmental costs of AI are carbon emissions and water consumption. Trees directly address both.
On carbon: A single AI query generates an estimated 1–4 grams of CO₂, though the figure varies significantly by model, infrastructure, and grid energy mix. Methodology developed by Tomlinson et al. (2024) places ChatGPT-style queries in the 2–3 gram range when amortized training costs are included. A mature tree absorbs roughly 22 kg of CO₂ per year through photosynthesis, storing that carbon in its biomass for decades.
At that rate, one mature tree offsets the equivalent of roughly 5,500–22,000 AI queries each year. Over its lifetime, a healthy tree can sequester around one metric ton of CO₂, depending on the species and growing conditions.
On water: AI’s water footprint is less visible than its energy footprint, but no less significant. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 2024 federal report, U.S. data centers consumed approximately 17.4 billion gallons of water in 2023 for cooling alone – a number projected to reach 38 to 73 billion gallons by 2028 as AI workloads intensify. A single large data center campus can consume more water in a day than a town of 10,000 people uses for drinking, sanitation, and agriculture combined.
Trees are nature’s counterweight to that depletion. Through transpiration, forests actively return water to the atmosphere, recharge groundwater, and regulate local water cycles, effectively restoring the watershed health that data center expansion strains. Reforestation also lowers ambient temperatures in the regions where trees are planted, which directly reduces the cooling load on nearby infrastructure.
These aren’t parallel stories.
Pairing AI automation with active reforestation isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a meaningful, verifiable step in the right direction for an industry growing this fast.
THE PHONE TREE IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE FOREST.
The Flip Forest grows at every year of the client relationship, as a running record of real impact.
Existing clients get an initial block of 10 trees planted in their brand’s name, reflecting the automation footprint they’ve already built. When a new client begins with us, 10 more trees go in the ground. As clients continue to automate and grow, the Flip Forest grows with every client’s anniversary.
If you’re already using Flip, we’re excited to make you a part of the forest.
If you’re not yet a client, let’s talk. We’ll retire your decision tree and plant a real one in its place.
