– Now listen because this is completely insane. Gina Tricot will therefore grow its own forest called Gina Tricot Forest. I think this is absolutely amazing, actually, said the influencer and entrepreneur Bianca Ingrosso on his Youtube channel about the collaboration with Gina Tricot.
It was in the spring of 2022 that the Swedish clothing giant Gina Tricot beat the big drum and launched the Gina Tricot Forest campaign. The promise was that they would plant an entire forest.
Bianca Ingrosso told us that Gina Tricot would plant her own forest, which would be named Gina Tricot Forest. Image source: Youtube/Bianca Ingrosso, SVTBianca Ingrosso promised a forest that would be filled with beehives. Image source: Youtube/Bianca Ingrosso, SVT
But when SVT visited the place Kalundborg in Denmark where the forest is located, the reality turned out to be completely different. Instead, the forest is owned by 150 private individuals and 20 companies, of which Gina Tricot is one of them. Gina Tricot owns 503 trees.
SVT’s reporter on a visit to the Gina Tricot Forest. Image source: SVTBianca Ingrosso: “Gina Tricot Forest will be filled with beehives”
If customers paid 10 kroner extra for the clothes in the campaigns, Gina Tricot also promised that beehives would be placed in the forest.
– It will be filled with beehives. Because bees make nature continue to flourish, said Bianca Ingrosso in her YouTube video.
But when SVT visited the forest, it turned out that the company had put out two beehives, which they paid for over two years. That time has now expired.
According to SVT West disclosure, Gina Tricot has bought trees for 80,000 kroner and the 28,000 kroner they received in extra from the customers thus resulted in two beehives.
This at the same time that Bianca Ingrosso, according to an expert that SVT spoke to, presumably received between SEK 5-10 million to advertise the clothes and the forest.
Gina Tricot’s annual turnover is approximately SEK 1.8 billion.
Bianca Ingrosso’s text on Youtube about the campaign. Image source: YoutubeGina Tricot Forest is not a forest
But in reality, even Gina Tricot’s 503 trees don’t count as a forest. For it to even be called a forest, the area needs to be half a hectare, i.e. 5000 square meters, to be called a forest.
The plot where Gina Tricot has planted extends over 1,600 square meters.
Matt’s Lindbladh is a professor of forest ecology. When SVT asks him if he would call this a scam, he replies:
– Yes, I would probably dare to say that this is a scam.
Rebecca Watkins is global sustainability manager at Gina Tricot. She tells SVT that the goal was to highlight biological diversity, and that it was “unfortunate” that they expressed that it would be about an entire forest.
– It is unfortunately worded, she says to SVT.
READ MORE: The questions Bianca Ingrosso refuses to answer: “It’s important”
Gina Tricot in windy weather also in 2022
This is not the first time that Gina Tricot finds itself in bad weather. In autumn 2022, customers called for a boycott when the companies fronted a campaign with an eating disordered model.
Then some reactions from upset customers sounded like this:
“Last time I sponsor this company…no thanks”
“Will not shop at Gina Tricot again…”
“Boycott and don’t buy the collection or anything from them. It will give results for money is the only thing that runs this company anyway”.
READ MORE: Therefore, Bianca Ingrosso deleted the commercial from the bathroom