Comprised of scientists and engineers with over 20 years of experience in their respective fields, Ctrees’ mission is to inform climate change policies by tracking carbon in every tree on the planet. The non-profit organization is the first global system to measure carbon in all the world’s forests – tracking emissions and removals at a planetary scale, down to the individual tree. To this aim, CTrees analyzes vast amounts of satellite data and makes their findings accessible to policymakers and scientists through a suite of interfaces, maps, and cutting edge tools.

Pentagram’s Giorgia Lupi and team were invited to help bring the CTrees mission to life through a complete redesign of their digital presence. The challenge was twofold: the team had to evolve the organization’s existing brand identity as well as find a new visual language for representing the complexity and beauty of CTrees’ work - a portfolio that encompasses data collection, mapping, and climate analysis all wrapped into one. 

The primary structure of the website follows a tree-like growth, becoming the overall organizing principle. The homepage unfurls like a living trunk – moving vertically from the high-level mission to deep methodological roots. Along the way, branching paths lead to distinct technological solutions, including the Land Carbon Map, one of CTrees’ signature products that measures carbon in forest lands on a global scale, and LUCA (Land Use Change Alerts), which tracks forest disturbance alerts from 2018 to present. The site’s unique, dynamic structure underscores the potential impact of these offerings for scientists and policymakers alike.

Beyond the home page, Pentagram worked closely with the CTrees team to develop a larger design system that mirrors the poetic precision of data with the striking beauty of nature: forest canopies traced with dotted connections to map out the global forest ecosystem, and satellite textures paired with clean infographics that breakdown the organization’s distinctive product offering in the context of the larger climate technology landscape. Custom graphic elements – such as orbital data rings, node constellations, and radial overlays – all echo the planetary scope of CTrees’ efforts.

This project builds on Team Lupi’s deep experience with climate-forward organizations, an example in how visual storytelling and data design are powerful tools in advancing policy and social progress. The result is a web system that grows from science, expresses complexity with clarity, and invites users to see the forest – and every tree – for the carbon they store and the future they shape.