Green Shoots
Abstract
We are leveraging distributed ownership technology, specifically non-fungible tokens (NFTs), to fund reforestation and ecosystem restoration efforts around the world. Our pilot project on a 10-acre parcel of land in coastal Ecuador will be a model for similar projects combatting climate change around the world.
The Reforestation Problem
Planting trees in the tropics is a cost-effective, holistic approach to mitigating the harmful impacts of climate change because increasing forest cover not only sequesters carbon and rebuilds ecosystems, but generates significant health and economic benefits for local communities.
Meanwhile, even though technological innovation is helping drive the popularity of worldwide carbon offset markets, high compliance costs render small reforestation projects economically infeasible. Even if these projects could solve their compliance challenges, most sponsors with access to land and knowhow lack the financial resources to fund their projects until their carbon can be monetized.
This leaves many “shovel-ready” projects inaccessible to the rapidly growing cadre of investors interested in supporting carbon sequestration efforts. This problem is exacerbated by complexities of cross-border real estate transactions and rule of law challenges around the world.
NFTs and their technological ecosystems offer a bridge that can make this type of project financially viable, broadly accessible and achievable at scale.
The NFT Solution
We propose a novel approach to deploying NFTs to address the funding challenges of small and medium- sized reforestation projects. Rather than the common approach of assigning NFT’s to trees or land parcels, our time-lapse, artistic photographic project will document the impact our project has on the land, ecosystems and people.
We will mint 100 NFTs representing unique vantage points on our property, and tokens will be sold pre- project to fund the capital-intensive initial phases of reforestation. NFT owners will then receive a new photograph from their vantage point at regular intervals during the project. This visual representation of how a project impacts ecosystems over time can be held, shared or traded as owners see fit.
Beyond our project, we envision a user-friendly platform where project sponsors can mint NFTs to bring their visions to life, connecting artists and investors with ecosystem restoration around the world.
We have been in talks with the Open Forest Protocol team, and we believe Green Shoots can function as an integration on the OFP platform when the product is fully built.
Conclusion
Reforestation holds great potential for contributing to our fight against climate change, but most projects remain economically infeasible. Further, existing carbon offset programs favor large, corporate players and leave small landowners in the developing world out of this multi-billion-dollar opportunity.
Our model, which leverages emerging cryptographic technology and increasingly popular NFTs, addresses the initial funding challenges which are preventing thousands of small and medium-sized reforestation projects from getting off the ground.
These efforts together could not only contribute to the reduction of carbon levels in the atmosphere, but have meaningful impacts for the people and ecosystems where climate change poses the greatest risk.
For more information, please contact schnageler@gmail.com.
TG handles: @schnageler, @seriousbusinessusername