Decentralized Environmental Offsets NFTs (Avano DAO)

Innovation Tagline:  A regenerative NFT marketplace that incentivizes actions that increase and maintain native ecosystems.

Project Keywords:  #environment, #NFTs, #global, #monitoring, #sustainability, #ecosystems, #regenerative

Project Members

  1. T.R. PriceT.R. Price
  2. Marcos Da Silva
  3. Victor Cucos

Tentative Project Members 

  1. Deval Pandya

Project Description (no more than 1,000 words including graphics)

Akorn DAO is a proposal for a project in Hyperledger labs. Hyperledger labs is an open source code community with a low barrier to entry. Any and all are welcome to join and contribute to the lab. Akorn DAO is a creating a regenerative NFT marketplace (DAO managed) for incentivizing actions that increase and maintain native ecosystems (ie. tree planting). Our platform aims to create decentralized methodologies for the creation of environmental offsets while being blockchain agnostic. We aim to work with neferti (NEFERTI) as well as the climate action and accounting special interest group (Climate Action SIG) during the Hyperledger Challenge 2022 to incorporate tools from Hyperledger into the creation of this open source platform.

We aim to create a crowdfunding mechanism to support any entity with the initial funding necessary to implement that action (such as tree planting). Gitcoin can provide an open source framework for the creation of this platform (https://github.com/gitcoinco). After a project achieves the crowdfunding cap, NFTs are minted tied to the project supported. These NFTs are able to be resold in the NFT marketplace. This marketplace and the NFT contracts would be a mixture of NEFERTI and Rarible (https://github.com/rarible). Proposed oracles for dynamically updating the NFTs are Chainlink (https://github.com/shambadynamic/cosmos-chainlink-oracle) and Ceramic (https://github.com/ceramicnetwork).

The data for measuring and verifying the NFTs as well as the benefits from them will come from satellite imagery, smart technology IOT devices, and georeferenced imagery from boots on the ground. For satellite imagery data we aim to tap into the API that TerraMatch (https://www.terramatch.org/) is creating.  This API will be able to tap into data from Resource Watch (https://resourcewatch.org/) as well as the Global Forest Watch (https://www.globalforestwatch.org/). For IOT sensors, we are working on a research and development project to become a partner organization with Helium (https://github.com/helium). We have yet to identify an open source codeset for georeferenced imagery data collection. 

For data analysis methodologies we aim to tap into the most credible codes for ecosystem service valuation. This includes what the Climate Action SIG has developed as well as the InVEST toolset from Stanford (https://naturalcapitalproject.stanford.edu/software/invest).

Once we have developed the Akorn DAO marketplace we will create a minting protocol. This protocol would be able to integrate with existing NFT marketplaces so that these marketplaces as well can provide support to regenerative actions. Instead of creating a wallet we will integrate existing wallets to this marketplace such as Metamask. 

Links to materials related to Akorn DAO can be found here: https://linktr.ee/AkornMarketplace


Hyperledger/ Linux Tools We Aim To Incorporate Into the Codebase 

Carbon Sequestration measurement https://github.com/moja-global

NFT Standard https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric-samples/tree/main/token-erc-721

Working Group Knowledge 

NEFERTI

Climate Action SIG


Problem

Currently regenerative marketplaces are very focused on carbon credits and lack detailed information as to the benefits to soil, water, air, etc. from these actions. They are controlled by centralized organizations that rarely incorporate a decentralized communities feedback as to the measurement and verification of the regenerative action and the benefits from them. Once they pay for a a carbon credit they don't offer continued financial support for the regenerative organizations to continue to do regenerative actions. Current regenerative marketplace examples are Verra, Sylva Terra, and other third party marketplaces.

Solution

We are creating a global community driven regenerative marketplace that is able to support actions on any ecosystem in the world. These actions would receive continued financial support through NFTs and tokenization. We'd rely heavily on a decentralized communities feedback in terms of the measurement and verification of the actions and the benefits from them. This decentralized community would be made up of scientific experts, onboarded organizations implementing the regenerative actions and the lay community. We'd use automated methods to measure and verify the regenerative action has been carried out and the benefits from it. These methods include satellite surveillance, smart technology IOT devices, and georeferenced imagery from boots on the ground. During the prototype phase we expect to develop a surveillance solution that is able to measure and verify a tree planting and the benefits from that tree over time especially in terms of carbon sequestration. 

Accomplishment and Team

During the pandemic T.R. Price released a surveillance solution that related environmental data to our health to proactively predict disease impact and transmission pathways. This solution recieved global honoroable mention through the Trinity challenge. Marcos da Silva has worked assessing blockchain technology and cloud computing solutions for years and has substantial technical expertise that can be leveraged to make coding decisions. Victor Cucos is an expert in strategy and has successfully lead one of the largest AI/ML trading platforms in crypto, he is now bringing this experience to this group. 

The main resource gap is  in development resources. We will need developers for the front and backend of this project. 

Project Plan

Beginning of Q2 2022

Action Items


Define sale strategy (target segment, pricing strategy, etc.)
Define token sale timeline and related marketing plan

Deliverables


Launch of website
Launch of select marketing

End of Q2 2022

Action Items


Legal documentation drafting and review
Account planning and budgeting
Operational framework design
Governance framework design

Deliverables


Issuance of sale documents
KYC and AML finalized

Q3 2022


IDO Crowdfunding for first regenerative organizations Creation of first liquidity pools from IDO (Trees, Ocean, Ag)

Q4 2022


Crosschain Expansion Enter Centralized Exchanges (tokens) Start Wrapping Tokens


How we will meet Roadmap

We will meet the goals outlined in the roadmap through finding appropriate funding and development resources. 

There is a lot to accomplish what we are setting out to do. Not being able to narrow our focus into step by step deliverables will leave us floundering in what we should do. Having a core set of leaders that can lead us strategically step by step in our development will help us to mitigate these risks. 


We Have A Page We Will Work to Continually Update Here: Decentralized Environmental Offsets NFTs (Avano DAO)