Climate action often feels heavy. The headlines focus on crisis, the solutions demand sacrifice, and the average person ends up believing their choices are too small to matter.
Robert Luo has been working to break that cycle.
As the CEO of Tanbii, he is building a platform that turns climate restoration into a daily habit through play.
His team has found a way to turn virtual energy into real world reforestation.
The idea is simple.
When people enjoy something, they stick with it.
When they see the results of their actions, they stay committed.
Tanbii uses those truths to make sustainability feel accessible, social, and rewarding.
Players plant virtual trees, complete missions, and build worlds within the game.
Behind the scenes, every eligible planting triggers a real tree planted on the ground through verified NGO partners.
What began as a frustration with the traditional sustainability message has grown into a global early access community with thousands of players and thousands of trees already planted.
In this interview, Robert breaks down the origin story of Tanbii, how the platform works, and what it takes to create a climate action experience that people actually enjoy.
Q: What was the lightbulb moment that led to Tanbii?
Robert: Tanbii started from a simple truth.
People care about climate change, but the world makes sustainability feel hard, expensive, and joyless.
I kept meeting young people who wanted to help but felt like their individual impact was too small.
At the same time, gamers were pouring passion and creativity into virtual worlds that reset whenever they logged out.
That contrast stayed with me.
The real spark came when I visited a reforestation site and saw volunteers struggling under the sun with almost no visibility or recognition.
I asked myself if this work could be supported by a digital world that people actually enjoy spending time in.
That idea became Tanbii.
A game where in-game actions create real environmental restoration.
Q: What mission guides Tanbii today?
Robert: Our mission is to turn climate action into something joyful, accessible, and emotionally rewarding through play. We want anyone, anywhere, to help restore the planet with a single tap.
The long-term vision is to build the world’s most engaging play to heal ecosystem. Virtual actions will drive real environmental impact, supported by AI, Web3, and global collaboration.
Three principles guide everything we build. Lower the barrier so sustainability feels easy. Make impact visible so people stay motivated. Empower global participation so anyone from New York to Nairobi can contribute.
Q: How does Tanbii create real environmental and social impact?
Robert: Players plant virtual trees inside the game, and those actions translate into real trees planted through our verified NGO partners.
Our early access community has already created more than 25,000 accounts and planted more than 2,500 real trees across Indonesia, Kenya, and Brazil.
The environmental impact goes deeper.
Each in-game action contributes to measurable carbon reduction.
Our blockchain Impact Ledger makes every tree verifiable.
Our AI ecosystem engine teaches players how ecosystems degrade and recover by letting them experience it, not by lecturing them.
There is also a social impact.
Many young people feel powerless in the face of climate change.
Tanbii gives them a simple habit that builds confidence.
Community events and guild missions amplify that impact and show what can be done through collective action.
We remove both the financial and emotional barrier to participation.
Q: How does your business model support both the game and the environmental work?
Robert: We operate a hybrid model. Inside the game, players can purchase character skins, seasonal expansions, utility items, and limited NFT collectibles.
The Web3 layer supports a marketplace for our Tanbii Green Token, secondary NFT sales, and special impact NFTs tied to real planting events.
A modest transaction fee supports continued development and reforestation.
We also work with brands that want to align with climate action.
They can sponsor in-game events, create branded forests, or run corporate climate missions for their employees.
Over time, players can stake or use TGT to unlock deeper content or participate in governance. Our design ensures that the healthiest player behaviors support both the ecosystem and environmental results.
Q: How have you funded Tanbii to date?
Robert: We have raised three million dollars in preseed funding from climate oriented family offices. We also received in-kind support from partners such as Coinbase, Impossible Cloud Network, and Bitget Wallet.
These partners see Tanbii as an early leader in impact focused Web3 gaming.
Our early access phase has also grown through community momentum rather than heavy marketing.
Q: What tools and systems keep Tanbii running behind the scenes?
Robert: Our stack blends AI, Web3, and modern product tools.
For game development we use Unity, our custom AI Ecosystem Engine, and an AI driven narrative generator.
AWS and GCP support our backend and training workloads.
On the Web3 side we use Coinbase Wallet and Bitget Wallet for onboarding.
We rely on Polygon and Base L2 for low cost NFT minting and tree verification.
The Graph indexes our planting metadata.
To verify real world impact we use blockchain explorer tools, partner NGO APIs, and an internal dashboard that tracks every tree in real time.
For team operations we use Notion, Slack, Discord, Figma, Jira, and Mixpanel.
Our community lives on Discord, and we share the story through TikTok and Twitter.
Q: What excites you most about where Tanbii is heading next?
Robert: We are proving that climate action does not need to come from guilt. It can come from creativity, enjoyment, and community.
Seeing a player plant their first virtual tree and then watch a real one appear on the Impact Ledger is powerful.
It shows that climate action can be personal and immediate. We plan to scale that feeling across millions of players and across ecosystems around the world.
