April 25, 2025

With development and urban sprawl on the rise in North Texas, a new agency in Dallas is making an effort to ensure native trees can thrive. 

Forest Bridge is a for-profit LLC that focuses on planting native trees in urban areas, using marketing dollars. 

Forest Bridge is the brainchild of Harvard environmental engineer Marianna Verlage Archibald. Last year, Jillian McFarland brought her marketing and nonprofit experience to the enterprise.

Forest Bridge’s primary mission is to add green spaces in city areas.

“I wish green space was all around us,” McFarland says.

She adds that the reason for taking a hybrid approach — a for-profit entity with a non-profit mission — is to speed up the initial impact. 

THE NEED FOR GREEN

Forest Bridge worked with Dallas Utilities and the Public Improvement District near Mockingbird Station in Dallas to plant trees in October. Photo  Le Reing.

For Forest Bridge’s first project in DFW, the group worked with Dallas Utilities and the Public Improvement District near Mockingbird Station in Dallas, planting trees in October. 

McFarland said founder Archibald works with city foresters and experts to select native or adapted trees, around five to 10 years old.

“These aren’t seedlings,” McFarland explains.

When planting trees, Forest Bridge enlists both employees and volunteers from the clients they work with. For their October project, they worked with volunteers from Dallas Water Utilities and had city foresters on hand. Forest Bridge also teaches their volunteers how to plant trees properly and uses ground irrigation for their projects to ensure trees thrive.

She cites the importance of the gray-to-green movement, which focuses on bringing greenery back into over-developed cities. 

“There’s a lot of problems with not having greenery,” McFarland says. “Especially during Covid, it was really obvious when everybody was in lockdown and we had nowhere to go.” 

She believes there is a public mental health crisis due to a shortage of accessible green spaces. Some green spaces are overcrowded and others make visitors pay to access them. 

“We’re wanting to help ‘green’ Dallas, especially because of the heat island problem. That’s mainly what inspired us to focus on that,” McFarland adds.  

The heat island effect is a phenomenon where heavily urban concrete areas, like Dallas, experience extreme heat, especially during the summer.

McFarland points out that Dallas and the surrounding area is currently going through overdevelopment, contributing to the heat island effect.

Planting more trees and plants can counter the effect. The heat island does not just impact humans. 

“It’s a problem for pollinators,” McFarland explains. 

Planting trees and vegetation can help to both cool the area while also offering accessible stops for pollinators like bees and butterflies.  

McFarland emphasizes the importance of choosing native plants. Native plants not only provide food and habitat for pollinators, they’re also useful in events like flash floods. Native root systems run deep and can both clean and absorb more flood water.

“I just like the idea of as much native stuff being put back in.” 

NO GREENWASHING

As Forest Bridge pushes to plant trees in developed areas, McFarland says they are looking at different financial routes to achieve their goals. She says the organization had the idea to use marketing dollars since marketing budgets are typically higher than sustainability or CSR budgets, she adds. 

When asked who their target clientele is, McFarland replied:

“Any brand that is looking to be net zero and net positive.” 

Sustainability is important to Forest Bridge and they want that reflected in their clients. She states that they aren’t a “green washing agency,” meaning that the groups they work with must also be sustainably conscious.

For example, McFarland says some companies use digital advertising as a way to be “green,” yet digital advertising can be dirty.  

“Using digital advertising contributes one to three percent carbon iodized emissions annually,” she explains. 

According to the Ecologist, research shows that digital marketing now produces more carbon emissions than aviation. 

“Every email, ad impression and press release requires energy, produced from burning coal, renewable energy or another source. Data is stored and processed in vast server farms that need electricity to run and cool,” according the article that published online last month.

“Can’t really say you’re fully sustainable or fully net zero without looking at your advertising processes,” McFarland says. “Digital advertising in particular.”

McFarland says that Forest Bridge looks for ways to “offset” what’s happening with digital advertising. 

One idea they’re considering is “geofencing” around a series of trees. The idea, McFarland explained, is that when someone drives past a tree planted by Forest Bridge that is geofenced, there is a ping on the user's phone, announcing that Forest Bridge planted a specific tree in that area, with an invitation to their business. 

CREATIVE TACTICS

Purchase The Coolest Bag for $49 and help plant native trees in Dallas. Courtesy of Forest Bridge.

Forest Bridge plans to test other innovative pilot programs using experiential, product and event marketing. 

The agency is currently marketing “The Coolest Bag,” 100-percent heavy-weight cotton bags  custom designed by local artist Patricia Rodriguez. Each limited-edition tote helps plant native trees and restore Blackland Prairie habitat. Cost is $49.

On Earth Day, Forest Bridge kicked off an exhibit at NorthPark Center on Earth Day that runs until May 6.

The exhibit celebrates Dallas' native trees and Blackland Prairie, featuring interactive tree music that lets you hear the hidden melodies of the urban forest. 

The music was created by a local musician who converted electrical signals from the leaves of native trees and played music based on the tree’s electric signal.  

For those interesting in learning more about Forest Bridge co-founders, Archibald and McFarland are hosting meet and greets at two events this weekend:

* Dallas Farmers Market on Saturday, April 26, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

* NorthPark Center, 8687 North Central Expressway in Dallas, on Sunday, April 27, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

For more info, go to the Forest Bridge website or see their Facebook page.

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