Executive summary
How the Savimbo project made fair-trade carbon offsets
Climate change is about to ruin us, but we know we can prevent it by planting trees. Companies are willing to finance this in the form of carbon credits. But the process of certifying a credit is impossibly complex, so 99% of potential farmers can't do it. Or could not do it. Until Savimbo.
The Savimbo Project is developing and deploying a mobile Web3 carbon-offset interchange between global buyers and sellers in tropical forests. Remote jungle inhabitants are the most likely to deforest, but also most capable of sequestering carbon effectively and inexpensively. Savimbo has calculated that it is more profitable to sequester carbon than engage in rainforest destruction, yet, until now, there was no way for individuals and smallholders to make a living this way. Through blockchain technology, Savimbo turns the local rainforest economy on its head, making it financially better to preserve than destroy nature.
Currently, ~2 billion smallholders are prevented from participating meaningfully in carbon-offset transactions by economies of scale. This leaves them no choice but to extract a living from globally-valuable resources in nearby forests. However, the danger and profit of these activities is less desirable to these communities than conservation income. Given the emerging market in carbon-offset trading, and the spreading availability of mobile technology and satellite internet it has become economically feasible to conduct fair-trade microtransactions for conservation.
Leading the initiative are autonomous rural communities, asking for sustainable micropayments that can enable existing grassroots conservation and naturalist activities instead of deforestation, mining, and oil exploration.
Savimbo has designed a mobile app, web interface, blockchain database, and smart contracts that mirror scientific protocols to track subsistence carbon-sequestration and biodiversity conservation with accuracy that matches or exceeds the carbon credit validation systems in place to date.
Using emerging technologies, it is both practical and profitable for smallholders to participate in global carbon-offset markets.
Token sale
The Savimbo Project seeks $5 million USD in funding in exchange for 20 million SV-C Carbon tokens upon completion of the ICO scheduled for Fall 2022. SV-C carbon tokens will initially be sold at $0.25 each, after which they can be utilized within the Savimbo interchange for atmospheric carbon sequestration within scientifically-validated protocols. Funds will be used to register smallholder farms within the Colombian Amazon for additional market availability.
Native SV-C Carbon tokens will each represent 1 ton of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and holders can rent carbon "storage" with available SV-T Tree sellers. Holders of Sequestered SV-C+ carbon tokens can then participate in secondary markets with their offset purchases. SV-C+ tokens will have the additional utility of allowing tokenholders to participate in ballots that help Savimbo determine governance topics such as the next geographic region for service deployment.
Market
The Savimbo project offers real-time solutions set to capture market growth with a focus on the emerging market in tropical forests between rural and Indigenous landowners and international buyers of carbon offsets. This market includes both deforested land that is jungle adjacent, and native jungle that is currently storing carbon.
The carbon offset market is supported by the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD+), a program whose 2021-2025 strategic aims include: “frontier technology solutions to accelerate systemic change” and “virtual engagement among marginalized groups. However, although Indigenous communities are often the most successful land curators, and smallholders (subsistence farmers) perform 85% of the deforestation in tropical forests, both groups are currently unable to participate in this market. Carbon markets typically transact only with national and subnational governments which have historically disenfranchised rural communities and continue to experience severe problems with corruption. Currently, despite the clear benefit of cutting out middlemen, there are no fair-trade mechanisms for autonomous actors in small communities to transact directly with purchases of international carbon offsets, despite the communities’ proximity to the problem, and long-time recognized status as preservationists.
High-tech has circumvented this kind of institutionalized corruption before. Ride-share apps like Didi, Kareem, Lyft, and Uber are a $84 billion industry that circumnavigated the globe within a decade. Uber exposed corruption, and price-gouging in New York City taxi industry as it swept the market with direct payments to autonomous drivers. Now the technology lives on in ride-hailing apps around the world. Today, Uber alone employs 3.4 million drivers around the globe.
While blockchain has been implicated in increasing carbon emissions, what if it could be harnessed for social incentives deployed to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide?
Solution
The Savimbo project is led by Todreamalife, a 300-person scientific consulting group working with autonomous tropical-forest landowners. Sellers use a mobile app for monthly micropayments from verifiable biochar, replanting, and forest conservation efforts. Buyers use a web interface that enables real-time tracking of offset growth and value, and secondary market resale. SV-C credits are created using industry best-practices according to rigorous scientific standards. Tracking is conducted monthly by mobile blockchain, with annual auditing by drone photogrammetry.
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