Using travel as a regenerative force
We find unique missions that people can join to make a positive change.
What is Canopi?
Canopi is a dedicated regenerative travel platform designed to bridge the gap between modern travelers seeking purpose and the NGOs working to conserve and restore nature.
We see the world's peril—driven by climate change, overtourism, and exploitative practices—and believe that tourism must become part of the solution. Currently, high-impact, hands-on experiences offered by underfunded conservation teams are too scattered for travelers to easily access.
Our mission is to solve this by creating a curated, single-destination platform. We drive visibility and paying visitors to NGOs, empowering them with sustainable funding to further their causes. Our goal is to convert individual choices into collective power, fostering a regenerative tourism sector that actively leaves the planet better than it was found.
What is regenerative tourism?
Regenerative tourism is a holistic approach to travel that aims to leave the destination better than it was found.
It represents an evolution beyond the principles of Eco-tourism, which primarily focuses on sustainability, reducing negative impacts and maintain the status quo. By contrast, regenerative tourism is focused on creating a net-positive change.
This means travelers shift their role from passive observers to active participants, contributing labor, resources or money to projects that actively restore ecosystems, empowering local communities to continue as guardians of the restored lands or reefs.
Why local communities are important?
Local communities are crucial to the enduring success of any restoration or conservation project because longevity hinges on local ownership and stewardship—a commitment no external agency can guarantee. For Indigenous communities, this contribution is enriched by ancestral knowledge, forged through millennia of living in equilibrium with their lands. This wisdom provides the unique, site-specific blueprint needed to restore the health of the ecosystem they have always been the rightful custodians of.
It represents an evolution beyond the principles of Eco-tourism, which primarily focuses on sustainability, reducing negative impacts and maintain the status quo. By contrast, regenerative tourism is focused on creating a net-positive change.In the modern context, environmental destruction often stems from unsustainable practices, knowledge gaps, or economic desperation. Therefore, showing an alternate path is essential. Whether this means regenerating ecosystems to restore rainfall patterns and soil ecology for agricultural abundance, or identifying alternative incomes like regenerative tourism to replace destructive methods like bomb fishing, community participation is the essential alternative. Having the community actively rebuild and conserve their environment instills a deep sense of pride and a collective enthusiasm that they then proudly share with the outside world through regenerative tourism.
One global study found that conservation projects controlled by local communities had positive ecological and social outcomes 56% of the time, a sharp contrast to the 16% success rate observed in projects controlled primarily by external groups, which often resulted in negative social outcomes.
Who are the founders?
As the original creators of Trainerize, the first online training software that revolutionized the fitness industry, we're now focused on our new mission. We want to combine our passion for travel and technology to give back to the planet. We're launching Canopi to help propel the next wave of regenerative travel, an opportunity for travelers to make the world a better place.
We focus on the technology. NGOs focus on the science, conservation and restoration. Together, we hope we can make a large collective difference.
Sharad Mohan
CEO
Farhad Gulamhusein
Partner Development
JC Taunay-Bucalo
Finance
Trevor Chong
Product
Ricky Ying
Developer
John La
QA
You can't protect a place unless you understand it. You can't love it until you know it.
Kristine Tompkins, Former Patagonia CEO
Why we founded Canopi
It's true: you cannot care for something you have never seen. Think back to your first encounter with animals or pristine nature - the majesty of a lion, the colourful fish swarming over a coral reef, the blanket of green on a pristine mountain range, the moment of serenity that defines wildness. This deep connection compels us to protect the planet.
Yet, tourism remains a double-edged sword. We see the symptoms of overtourism everywhere: crowds swamping historical sites, untreated sewage poisoning the very reefs people came to see, and forests cleared for resorts. This destruction is often fueled by economic desperation and unsustainable practices.
On the positive side, countless NGOs and local communities are actively restoring degraded ecosystems and protecting ancestral lands from illegal logging. These dedicated conservationists are fighting to preserve the biodiversity mankind's quest for profit rapidly diminishes.
Our team has tried to book visits to support these groups, and the process is frequently difficult. NGOs are usually underfunded and lack the resources to scale visibility, marketing, and awareness.
This reality led us to ask: What if travel could be a dedicated force for good? We recognize that tourism money has incredible power to lift communities out of poverty, allowing them to transition from extraction to restoration. This shift builds a sustainable sense of pride and stewardship.
A new generation of travelers is seeking authentic, off-the-beaten-path experiences that add to a place. We know that 2 billion trips are made yearly. What if just one percent of that volume were channeled through regenerative tourism? That collective difference is what we are building Canopi to achieve.
Our Hope For The Future
When faced with the sheer scale of global problems in the news, it's easy to feel paralyzed. The antidote is often to narrow your focus and take small, concrete steps. Instead of giving up, we built Canopi as our small step. You can join us either by booking a trip, or listing as a partner.
Canopi is still in its startup phase, but we have a good idea what we want to be when we grow up. We hope to become companies like Patagonia, where all profits are channeled directly back into a foundation. These funds will be immediately reinvested with our partners into vital restoration and rewilding projects.
Join us by taking this small step with us.