Description
5 innovative projects proving impact and unlocking critical funding in the climate and sustainability space.
Bundle Description
🌍 Introducing the Impact Verification Infrastructure Bundle - the ultimate toolkit for proving impact and unlocking funding in the sustainability and climate solutions space. This bundle brings together 5 cutting-edge projects 🔥 that are changing the game for measuring, reporting, and verifying (MRV) impact. With our bundle, you'll be able to confidently prove that your projects are delivering real, tangible results.💡
What
We recently heard a story about a businessman who decided to sell one of his father’s petrol pumps to buy forest land. He claimed that carbon sequestration was a “lazyboy” way to make money with little effort. He bought 100 hectares of deciduous forest land in Northern Russia and planted fast-growing birch trees, which are not indigenous to the area. To make way for the new trees, he cut down rich biodiversity, leading to the destruction of the local ecosystem. The situation was worsened by the use of fertilizers and short-term solutions, which caused soil erosion, over-extraction of the water table, and displacement of local species. This is not what regeneration should look like.
Why
This anecdote is not an isolated incident, but a growing concern due to the inadequacy of impact accounting. The worst part is how well meaning activists, investors and regulators cant help but incentivize actions like the one outlined above. As the Impact Verification Bundle, we believe that better, more holistic impact verification metrics are key to addressing these problems. All our regenerative efforts are underpinned by the quality of our measurement and verification tools that enable us to track the real impact we've made.
Although tons of carbon sequestered can serve as a baseline for measuring regenerative impact, it doesn't provide the whole picture. In fact, it could even encourage actions that destroy biodiversity in the region where it is being applied. This is known as the measurement problem, as Goodhart's law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. The measurement problem is also the main barrier when it comes to funding other domains of regenerative action like litter cleanup, water & soil health, and even hard to quantify domains like psychological well-being.
How
To solve this problem, we need decentralized, innovative approaches that maintain composable and unifying standards that are easy to deploy and corroborate with tools of decentralized Measurement, Reporting, and Validation (dMRV). This requires major innovation in the way we account for impact. We're currently supporting five innovative projects working to address this problem at the root of our impact accounting stack. Any donation you could make would go a long way in supporting this often underappreciated keystone in the #ReFi and impact investing sector.
Who
BĂšAN @buan_fund
BĂšAN is minting digital twins of RWA on Ethereum with a focus on environmentally valuable areas of land which can form the backing for impact certificates which can be sold to businesses. With the ultimate goal of rekindling societies relationship with nature. Think of us as The Federal Reserve before it moved away from the gold standard except our treasure is biodiversity. By developing the rails to on board RWA to the blockchain in a legally indemnifiable way we hope to encourage others to innovate within the same framework.
EverGreenCoin @EverGreenCoin_
EverGreenCoin® (EGC) is a native blockchain PoW/PoS hybrid cryptocurrency, long full PoS, launched in 2015. The EverGreenCoin Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)3 public charity launched in 2017. Proof of Environment™ (PoE) is a program of the foundation's, by which it rewards environmentally-conscious activities and observations with EGC, launched in 2019. PoE rounds run monthly and the reward pool is grown throughout. Submissions are publicly scored. The reward each submission receives after month's end is proportionate to the public scoring. We believe we have an amazing platform established for people to share, and be rewarded for, any environmentally-conscious activity.
Website: https://EverGreenCoin.org
LunarPunk Labs @LunarPunk_Labs ****
Weaving the unconscious of the regenaissance.
We are researching, designing and developing a new breed of dynamic impact verification metrics operationalizing indigenous health intelligence by encapsulating it as Adaptive Capital. “Adaptive Capital” is subsequently a proposition for valuing living ecosystems through a multi-perspective architecture and evaluating it against the free energy principle; a means of evaluating quantitative measures with qualitative outcomes by Active Inferencing.
We also bootstrap our runway and do ecosystem weaving by providing systems architecture consultations, UX/UI design and R&D for integrating AI & LLM, Narrative & Marketing for Regenerative projects from our combined experience of Governance Coordination in Regen Foundation, R&D at Pillar and Ecosystem Development at CommonsStack, Wholistic Business Design, UX, Brand Design and Software Development at various other traditional and web3 enterprises. We are platform & ecosystem agnostic and provide keystone services to keep the ecosystem nourished and provide design schemas for impact evaluation across platforms and projects. We are also designing interfaces for perpetual onboarding and interfacing with “Natural General Intelligence'' currently being prototyped on a holonic social media platform. We also provide workshops and thought leadership on the domains of Active Inference/ FEP and education for the usage of ZKproofs in Impact assessment metrics and decentralized crowd work safety.
Our partners include: Sovereign Nature Initiative (Research), AtlantisDAO (Systems Architecture Pilot), VIZN_Labs (Management), Weco.io (User Interface & Social Media), Networked Autonomous Organisms (Portable Communities Protocol) & Greencheck (Sybil Resistant DID).
ORGO @orgo_earth
ORGO is an impact certification engine that empowers individuals and organizations committed to making a positive difference for our planet. We offer community organizations with data collection, task management, and volunteer engagement tools to streamline their operations. Nonprofits on our platform verify impactful activities using evidence-based criteria and issues on-chain credentials . Join us for a better planet!
Impact organizations gain access to cutting-edge data collection, task management, and community engagement tools, taking their impact work to the next level. Individuals can also join the fight for a better planet and earn rewards while completing missions for participating organizations. Verified evidence-based activities grant users verifiable credentials in their profiles, showcasing their contributions to the planet. With a blockchain wallet, users own and control the data they create. By combining their efforts, individuals and organizations can create impactful, verifiable projects that are available for donors in our Sponsorship Marketplace.
Website: https://orgo.earth/
Discord: http://discord.gg/qhg6wqWE5j
Blog: https://medium.com/@orgo_earth/our-philosophy-279431efc41a
SproutUp @SproutUpApp
SproutUp is the impact certificate fundraising platform for web3 impact organizations. Impact certificates are NFT’s that represent one project output, such as a planted tree or bag of collected trash.
Impact certificates are the new “products” of the impact sector. Each donor will receive one or more certificates for their donation. Each SproutUp impact certificate consists of: a video of unique project impact; AI-generated cover art; and a name, description, and attributes.
Impact certificates have two critical roles in climate impact verification.
1) Carbon credit alternative
Web3 refi has carbon credit tunnel vision. Carbon credits have an important but limited role—to offset ghg emissions. They apply to a small range of projects. They come with strict requirements. They are commoditized and sold in bulk, mostly to large corporate buyers. And they are, unfortunately, rife with fraud.
Impact certificates are the opposite. They are individually unique. They can be creatively configured for a wide range of projects. And they are sold to ordinary donors.
Impact certificates are for climate projects that need a flexible fundraising and verification toolkit.
SproutUp will offer smart contract and NFT “legos” that each project can combine to fit their needs. A project could, for example, create tree NFTs (backed by verifiable impact) that produce carbon tokens for their holders. And the carbon tokens could in turn unlock further benefits.
2) True price accountability
What many miss about impact verification is it’s not just about the impact—but also how much it costs.
For every purchase, we need to know the price. The right product at the wrong price is the wrong purchase.
The same is true of impact work. A donation is only worthwhile if funds are used effectively. However, there are no (real) prices in the impact space, and therefore, no cost-informed way for donors to allocate money.
Tree planting nonprofits, for example, can prove they planted a million trees. However, they can’t prove that it only costs “$1 per tree” to do it. Virtually every such claim today is false. If donors cannot connect the dots between their donation and a unique tree, there is no real price. Period.
The ability to atomize project outputs (such as trees) into unique impact certificate NFTs is the critical link to creating price accountability. And subsequently the key to spurring impact sector efficiency and innovation.
Website: https://sproutup.app/
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/yCGWyZJ5ZY
Bundle update since Beta round
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The bundle raised an inspiring $390 during Gitcoin Beta, which was matched an impressive 7,093 DAI on July 10th, 2023. Each project received 1,4238.8 DAI, with the rest used to reimburse expenses from Beta round and reserved for expenses of the bundle’s in Gitcoin Grants 18 (GG18) and will be used under the bundle’s discretion.
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A Hypercert was minted for donors to claim ownership of their donation in Beta round. https://hypercerts.org/app/view#claimId=0x822f17a9a5eecfd66dbaff7946a8071c265d1d07-163675818488971400925883186174680509710336
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Continued collaboration on emerging technologies in the Web3 and ReFi spaces. Everyone volunteered to fund raise as this bundle, yet again! Now our 3rd round!
Individual project updates since Beta round
BĂšAN @buan_fund
BĂšAN is minting digital twins of RWA on Ethereum with a focus on environmentally valuable areas of land which can form the backing for impact certificates which can be sold to businesses. With the ultimate goal of rekindling societies relationship with nature. Think of us as The Federal Reserve before it moved away from the gold standard except our treasure is biodiversity. By developing the rails to on board RWA to the blockchain in a legally indemnifiable way we hope to encourage others to innovate within the same framework.
EverGreenCoin @EverGreenCoin_
- This Spring and Summer have brought many severe storms across the USA, and the power outages that come with them. The longest being 4 days without power at EverGreenCoin HQ. Snapped telephone poles across many states is undoubtedly an echo of climate change’s, as extreme weather events become more and more unpredictable and devastating. To mitigate these disruptions, battery backup equipment was purchased to power network infrastructure during power outages, that previously caused solar-powered nodes to lose connectivity during these outages. Together with solar and batter power, during these outages, EverGreenCoin will be in a much better position to not suffer non-critical service outages. Mission critical nodes are already generator backed up in world-class data centers with geographic redundancy across continents, for when, or if, these extreme weather events shutdown larger areas.
- Expanded the reach, and ease of participation, in our flagship Proof of Environment program by allowing Facebook groups, under the lead of a PoE team manager who manages the group and team members’ wallets, to form for the purpose of submitting evidence via the Facebook group. The team manager then vets the submission and, if requirements are meet, formally submits via the EverGreenCoin website. Even better, in the latest revision of this idea, the coins are staked, with staking rewards offsetting the administration time and costs. While wrinkles are still being ironed out, the effort has already rewarded PoE participants with their local currency in Africa, with more to soon come.
EverGreenCoin is proud to have received funding from Gitcoin Beta round and honored to be back fundraising with our bundle again in Gitcoin Grants 18!
LunarPunk Labs @LunarPunk_Labs ****
Primary Updates
- Used the funds to buy computer hardware for prototyping ML Model substrates for Semantic Impact Embeddings and making Narrative Assets
- Venture Commons gardening with auraura, weco.io, nao.is, commonhack, cheqd and daodao for holonic ecosystem funding.
- Seeding skin in the game partnership with Atlantis DAO and network ecosystem
Our detailed primary milestones, research and design specs are available here : https://commonwealth.im/regen/discussion/10002-rfp-tokenomics-20-proposal-adaptive-capital
Auxiliary Updates
- Systems Design for Auraura holonic quadratic funding pools features on weco.io
- New histories and futures inducted at https://www.tothecosmos.org/, a hub for creative writing and lore building for the ecosystem
ORGO @orgo_earth
Since the last round we have launched the following features and developed the following aspects of the business. We are currently pre-seed and working towards our Minimum Viable Product. We believe we are making great progress and building a strong team who is aligned on our mission.
Business and Partnership Development
- We onboarded Vision Farmers Organization which is based in Kenya. They are focused on teaching students about climate change and educating them to plant trees on campus and at home.
- We also added a board member to our team who brings their expertise in business strategy, financial modeling and analysis as well as overall support.
- We also touched base with Little Growers which is a community garden located in Florida and they would like to implement ORGO to educate children about permaculture, food deserts and how to grow their own food.
Product Development
- Launched the prototype of the Mobile Application for Android users and currently in the process of testing for iOS users
- Revamped our map layout and made it easier for volunteers to locate communities on the map itself.
- We are currently in the process of updating our Sponsorship Market to allow various options for communities to upload projects and funnel support.
- We updated the task list to display images and created onboarding prompts for new communities, volunteers and sponsors
- Individuals and communities can also export approved missions to their social media pages and retrieve Impact Certificates for their completed tasks.
SproutUp @SproutUpApp
Launch
We plan to launch our first impact certificates with the Solar Foundation! The Solar Foundation provides solar panels to organizations in the global south.
SF’s first impact certificate collection will represent the benefits their panels provide, such as electricity for classroom computers, phone charging, and security lighting for a tree nursery.
Impact certificates will kickstart a growth flywheel for SF. Unlike traditional donations and grants that yield unpredictable revenue—impact certificate donations have a fixed donation amount, ensuring donations for each project will both cover costs and fuel new organization growth.
Technical / product
We now have the backend functionality in place to support donations in multiple crypto currencies (BTC, ETH, MATIC USDC, USDT, USDC).
We updated to V3 of our NFT marketplace. This will enable a wide range of options for organizations to sell their impact certificates.
We’ve also improved user onboarding and the organization dashboard, eliminating unnecessary tools and metrics views and tightening the focus on impact certificates.
And, as always, we’ve made many bug fixes and improvements.