FAQ
Frequently asked questions
The questions councils, ecology consultants, and sustainability officers most commonly ask before booking a briefing.
- Is JoinEcoGrow already in production with councils?
- Not yet. JoinEcoGrow is a Cardiff-based product in early operational stage. The Cardiff demo on cardiff-demo-joinecogrow.vercel.app shows what a council deployment can look like, with illustrative data only — no signed contracts or live council deployment is implied. We are open about this so reviewers can evaluate the platform on its merits.
- Who owns the data captured through the platform?
- Your organisation. JoinEcoGrow acts as a processor of the records your team creates — it does not claim any ownership over your environmental records, photos, or location data. See our Privacy Policy for the formal position.
- Where is the data hosted?
- On managed UK / EU infrastructure (PostgreSQL via Supabase, with hosting on Vercel) under UK GDPR. International transfers, where they happen, use standard contractual clauses or equivalent lawful safeguards. Operational details are summarised on the Security page.
- Can we export our records if we leave?
- Yes. Records are intended to be exportable as structured outputs at any time — that is the point of the platform's record model. Lock-in is not a healthy posture for council software, and we do not design for it.
- Does JoinEcoGrow replace our ecology consultant or arboriculturist?
- No, and it should not. JoinEcoGrow supports record-keeping, structured workflows, and reviewer-friendly outputs aligned to BNG, Section 6, BS 5837, and LNRS work. Statutory advice on biodiversity, planning conditions, BS 5837 categorisation, BNG metric calculations, and environmental reporting must continue to come from accredited ecology consultants and qualified arboriculturists.
- How does this fit with our existing tree management system?
- We expect councils to already have inspection regimes, asset registers, and sometimes a tree-management system. JoinEcoGrow focuses on field capture and review, producing structured, located records a reviewer has approved, which can feed your existing systems rather than replace them. Concrete integration paths are part of any briefing conversation.
- How does pricing work?
- Pricing is currently shaped per council based on managed-site count, team size, and reporting scope. We are deliberately not publishing public-sector pricing without first understanding the workflow, because anything else tends to over- or under-state the cost. The fastest path to a number is a 15-minute briefing.
- Can JoinEcoGrow be white-labelled for our organisation?
- Yes, on the Enterprise tier. White label can range from a co-branded workspace to a fully branded portal with your custom domain, logo, colours, QR assets, report templates, and optional SSO/API integration. The product stays powered by JoinEcoGrow verification infrastructure underneath. See the White-label page for the deployment levels.
- Is the platform accessible?
- Public surfaces (joinecogrow.com and the Cardiff demo) target WCAG 2.1 AA. The product application has known gaps that we are closing release-by-release. Full position is on the Accessibility page.
- How do we move from "interested" to "talking properly"?
- Either book a 15-minute briefing on whichever calendar tool your team uses, or email founder@joinecogrow.com with a sentence about your council and what you're trying to evidence.