Contextual Attestations of Value Creation

Typology

Benjamin Life:

Global Impact Markets: Aggregating Contextual Attestations

"The emergence of Blockchain-Based Verification Systems creates possibilities for what economist Mariana Mazzucato might term "markets shaping" rather than just market-taking—intentionally designing market infrastructures that recognize and reward public value creation. These systems can create what might be called "attestation markets" where contextual impact claims become globally tradable without losing their specific qualities.

Unlike traditional ESG indices that flatten impact into universal metrics, attestation markets maintain what philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer called the "historically effected consciousness" of specific contexts. A carbon removal credit from an indigenous-managed forest in Brazil carries with it not just tons of CO2 sequestered but the specific cultural, ecological, and social contexts of its creation.

This approach enables:

Impact portability across jurisdictions while maintaining provenance and context. A regenerative agriculture project in Kenya can receive investment from anywhere in the world without having its impacts reduced to abstract universal metrics.

Value translation between different impact frameworks without requiring strict commensurability. Indigenous land stewardship practices can be recognized in their own terms while still making their benefits legible to distant supporters.

Nested verification where claims are validated at multiple scales simultaneously. Local communities can verify impacts according to their own criteria while broader scientific verification ensures global credibility.

Sovereignty preservation that allows communities to maintain authority over verification while accessing global markets. What indigenous scholar Kyle Whyte terms "collective continuance"—a community's capacity to adapt while maintaining its essential identity—becomes compatible with market participation rather than threatened by it.

These markets demonstrate what economic sociologist Michel Callon terms "market devices"—technical arrangements that enable new forms of exchange without predetermining what can be valued. Rather than replacing contextual determination of value with universal metrics, they enable contextual values to circulate globally while maintaining their distinctive qualities.

Beyond ESG: Voluntary Impact Markets for Systemic Change

Current ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) frameworks predominantly serve risk mitigation rather than impact generation—helping investors avoid negative externalities rather than creating positive ones. Moreover, as legal scholar Brett Christophers argues, ESG often becomes a form of "value-grabbing" where social and environmental concerns are repackaged as financial value for investors rather than distributed to affected communities.

Voluntary impact markets transcend these limitations by:

Incentivizing additionality rather than rewarding business-as-usual with better labels. While ESG often recognizes existing practices, voluntary impact markets create incentives for new forms of value creation previously unrecognized by markets.

Enabling price discovery for previously non-marketized benefits. Rather than relying on arbitrary valuations of social and environmental impacts, these markets allow diverse participants to collectively determine the value of specific impacts through actual exchange.

Creating funding flows to early-stage transformation rather than established players. Unlike ESG indices that primarily direct capital to large corporations with resources for compliance, voluntary impact markets can route funding to community-scale innovators working on systemic solutions.

Bridging institutional and community capital through intermediaries that translate between different value frameworks. Organizations like Indigenous Commons demonstrate how capital can flow from institutional investors to community-controlled funds without imposing external priorities.

These markets represent what economic sociologist Karl Polanyi might recognize as re-embedding economic activity within social relations—creating exchange mechanisms that recognize the fundamentally social nature of value rather than treating it as an abstract property of commodities."

(https://omniharmonic.substack.com/p/beyond-narrow-optimization?)