Ecological Datatokens

Description

Louise Borreani and Pat Rawson:

"Ecological datatokens can be considered “green” in the sense that their possession, staking, or exchange on markets generates financial flows that incentivize a growing awareness and understanding of complex ecosystems. As mentioned in previous chapters, the observation of the biosphere and its constituent ecosystems is the first critical step towards effective intervention. Ecological data informing an ecosystem’s state is of paramount importance for ongoing management of the environment, used in ecological simulations and model development, climate models, verification of research results, meta-analysis, natural resource management, and education (among other use cases).

The market for ecological state data has grown significantly over the years, and many applications requiring high quality ecological data are being developed. New financial branches such as Spatial Finance that integrate “geospatial data with financial analysis and decision-making” and innovative AI algorithms/applications which have the direct aim of conserving or regenerating natural ecosystems are emerging. Example Web3 projects gathering environmental data include dClimate and the Open Climate database from Open Earth. The global environmental monitoring data sector reached several billion USD in 2020, and is expected to double by 2030.

Despite the overall appetite for ecological state data of various types—agricultural, environmental monitoring, weather and climate—available datasets remain limited and siloed across actors, territories, and industries. Web3 offers the possibility to collectivize large data sets to form so-called “data trust DAO[s]”, strengthening the control and market power that data producers have over their data. With this in mind, DAOs hold the potential to democratize the vast wealth afforded by biodiversity and other environmental scientific IP, further incentivizing adequate data collection."

(https://mirror.xyz/ecofrontiers.eth/zkh2LoADInAgr7GLbXnsuUOEcwJKFE4GuUSYuYU22io)

Examples

"Environmental process tokens are the green crypto-asset par excellence—flag-bearing assets that aim to represent a specific environmental process, such as carbon sequestration or biodiversity. To ensure fair representation of these environmental processes, their production is institutionally constrained by methodologies defining Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) standards.

As a rule of thumb, the stricter the methodology, the fairer its representation of the underlying material reality. Traditionally, these methodologies have been developed, certified, and governed by centralized institutions, whose issued assets are exchanged on traditional voluntary or regulated markets. Today, there are four main companies that develop standards and certify projects: Verra, Gold Standard, American Carbon Registry, and Climate Action Reserve. These issuers and the value chain at large, including project developers and brokers, are under general scrutiny for fraud, double counting, and questionable material results, revealing ample opportunities for Web3 innovation to plug-in and fix structural value chain gaps."

(https://mirror.xyz/ecofrontiers.eth/zkh2LoADInAgr7GLbXnsuUOEcwJKFE4GuUSYuYU22io)