Avoiding meat, air travel, and the rise of electric vehicles have largely captured the headlines and our imagination, but hope for the future lies in a solution so simple it often falls under the radar: land regeneration.
By transitioning to regenerative agriculture across 2.5 billion hectares, humanity could sequester all of our global emissions every year. Ensuring the survival of our species requires us simply to take care of and respect the earth beneath our feet.
Earthbanc Founder Tom Duncan worked in large scale land restoration for 15 years; “I worked on some pioneering ecosystem service markets in Australia where farmers would bid to provide ecosystem services to improve water quality, biodiversity values and sequester carbon.
“That project raised about $300 million and showed me that you could develop and deliver ecosystem services markets, but there just wasn't enough scale.”
Without a mass-market approach to financing land regeneration and the creation of new incentivisation models he saw that “it was still just the domain of government policy units and ad hoc programs, and when a government changes, the program might get scrapped or be toned down.”
He set out to find a private-sector solution to incentivising regenerative land management practices that would be profitable, long-lasting, and scaleable en masse.
Was there a ‘Holy Grail’ that could drive radical uptake of regenerative land management by making it profitable?
Duncan’s search led him to the carbon credit markets.
In 2005, the European Commission (EC) introduced the carbon credit programme in an attempt to limit corporate pollution and help countries comply with emissions reductions targets; each company or nation is given a number of ‘credits’ that allow them to emit a set amount of carbon.
If they go over their carbon credit limits, they have to purchase more credits which are used to pay for carbon reduction programmes. If they have unused credits because they are emitting less carbon, they can earn money by selling these credits.
The carbon credit programme creates a financial incentive for companies to reduce their emissions, and this impetus is continuously being ramped up with the EU deciding in 2017 to lower the carbon credit cap by 2.2% every year until 2030.
With growing numbers of corporations being pushed to adjust their modus operandi in line with governments’ net-zero targets for 2050, demand for carbon credits has risen dramatically:
“Last year there was a 969% increase in nature-based solutions carbon futures contracts. It was hard to find a 969% growth in any asset class in 2021 – but the growth was in futures contracts on nature-based carbon solutions,” says Duncan.
The carbon credits programme offered a tangible way to hold institutions to account on their net-zero commitments, but the system lacked clear regulation, oversight and transparency; there was often no real way to measure whether carbon credits were living up to their claims of offsetting or reducing emissions.
Here’s where Duncan spotted an opportunity to not only solve the problems of trust and transparency in the carbon credit market but create the financial incentives that could drive a mass market approach to land regeneration.
He launched Earthbanc to offer the world’s first continuously audited and verified carbon offsets.
In a first of its kind collaboration with the European Space Agency, Earthbanc uses AI models trained on satellite remote sensing data to study images of land regeneration projects and automatically audit their carbon reduction impact to verify carbon credits.
Earthbanc uses blockchain technology to keep a transparent record of carbon reduction to securely and directly link the regenerative work of farmers and land managers to the companies buying carbon credits.
“We're the first fintech blockchain platform where you can deposit your carbon into a bank-like vault. Farmers register on the Earthbanc platform, and we measure the carbon sequestration in the landscape of that farmer,” Earthbanc CEO Tom Duncan explains.
The company has audited the carbon stocks of over 13 million hectares of forest globally using satellites and proprietary remote sensing technology.
“We have large corporate buyers who are buying carbon on our platform every month. We’re selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of carbon, so a farmer can get paid for their ecosystem services.
“What makes Earthbanc’s solution so potent in combating the climate crisis is its basis on expert knowledge of land restoration and paying farmers in areas of the world where the impact is the greatest – both for nature and for people,” says Duncan.
“For a farmer on the ground in India, for example, if we talk about our mangrove restoration project, if someone buys carbon from that project, those farmers can start receiving a 91% increase in their annual salary.
“This is just life-changing for those people. These are some of the most climate-vulnerable people in the world who are subjected to hurricane-driven storm surges washing away their homes, destroying their agricultural infrastructure, their power infrastructure. They're very vulnerable people so they need all the help they can get.
“In mangrove ecosystems in rivers, in estuaries, just like the Sundarbans in India, 50% of fish clusters are spawned. It's incredibly important for healthy oceans that we protect mangroves.”
Now, Earthbanc is taking its mission of financing land regeneration one step further by launching an app that will enable anyone anywhere in the world to invest in and profit from sustainable land management.
“We've got a waitlist for the blockchain-based investments app, which is going to be launched soon. So we encourage people to sign up and register their email so they’re the first to find out how they can get access to these amazing opportunities.
“Our platform will enable investors to access 8% fixed - 15% variable APY yields and finance nature-based carbon removal projects globally.”
The Earthbanc app will provide a carbon bank with an easy way for global users to deposit and withdraw their investment, including for the unbanked.
Duncan calls it the ‘regenerative finance revolution’ – a verifiable way to merge financial incentives with restoration projects designed for maximum impact, where making a significant difference is as easy as depositing savings in a bank.
