Can Regenerative Finance Save the World?

For too long, harmful practices have continued freely while the economic systems fail to initiate the necessary change. Improving the infrastructure for environmental assets in Web3 helps to solve issues creating a new category — Regenerative Finance.

My name is Daria Volkova, and this article is dedicated to the vital topic of the future — Regenerative Finance and how blockchain technology reduces carbon emissions.

Regenerative finance is a type of finance that aims to support and invest in systems, projects, and organizations that have a positive impact on people and the environment. It’s based on the idea that financial systems should not just focus on maximizing profits but also contribute to the well-being of society and the natural world.

The topic of ecology is always closely related to politics because any environmental initiative must be approved and implemented by the local authorities. Because of this, many great ideas have never been implemented, politicians are always "deeply concerned", and exalted characters like Greta Thunberg distort the image of the environmentalist.

ReFi gives an opportunity independently of governments and politicians to contribute to the preservation of the environment by staying on the side of blockchain technologies.

There are several potential values of regenerative finance, including:

1. Promoting sustainability. Regenerative finance can support sustainability initiatives, such as renewable energy projects or environmentally-friendly products.
2. Creating positive social impact. It can also support projects that have a positive social impact, such as affordable housing or access to education.
3. Aligning financial goals with values. For individuals and organizations that want their financial decisions to align with their values, regenerative finance can provide a way to invest in projects that align with their beliefs and principles.
4. Supporting systems change. Regenerative finance can also support initiatives that aim to create systemic change, such as policy reforms or movements for social justice.
5. Enhancing resilience. By supporting projects that improve stability, such as community-based food systems or disaster preparedness programs, regenerative finance can help communities and societies become more resilient in facing challenges.

Another added benefit is the media hype surrounding this type of finance and the use of blockchain technology to improve the environmental situation on Earth. Everything related to the blockchain and DeFi is receiving more attention, which means that one of the advantages of ReFi is the involvement of a large number of technological people with money in solving environmental issues.

Many projects and developments in the space are focused on long-term potential, which is now uniting under the ReFi direction. These projects also use the idea of regeneration nature as positioning and uniqueness of the brand. I want to share some of such projects with you.

So, first of all, you need to know about the Climate Collective organization. It’s a leading coalition of stakeholders — from investors and non-profit organizations to entrepreneurs and scientists — leveraging trusted, sustainable web3 infrastructure to unlock innovative and verifiable climate action at scale.

Their mission is to build a trusted market for high-quality digital environmental assets that enable people and the planet to thrive. They believe in supporting planetary health and a regenerative financial system using mass-coordination tools to solve problems.

One of the most notable projects in Climate Collective is Celo, pronounced /ˈtselo/ means ‘purpose’ in Esperanto. Celo is a fully EVM-compatible proof-of-stake layer-1 protocol featuring a fast, ultralight client designed for mobile, with the ability to pay transaction fees with tokens or stablecoins.

Celo aims to create the conditions for prosperity: people fulfilling basic needs, growing along their unique paths, and supporting each other.

One more organization is Blockchain for Climate Foundation from Canada. Their mission is an international collaboration on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is critical to halting climate change.

Today’s world presents nearly unlimited opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but has lacked a system to connect emissions reductions chance with capital and demand. Blockchain technology promises to manifest a transparent, public and universal ledger that can serve as a medium of exchange for emissions reduction outcomes.

The next project is Toucan Protocol. It exists to help us rapidly coordinate a response to our species’ most significant challenge. Improving the infrastructure for environmental assets in Web3 helps to solve key market issues: fragmentation, inefficiency, a lack of consistent data, and limited access.

Toucan Protocol focuses on digitizing and tokenizing off-chain carbon offsets as a type of middleware solution for other projects to incorporate through their Open Climate Registry via the Toucan API and SDK.

Toucan was launched in October 2021 as the infrastructure provider behind Base Carbon Tonne (BCT), their first carbon reference token. This was released with KlimaDAO.

So, the last project I want to share in this video is KlimaDAO, co-founded by Mark Cuban, an American billionaire entrepreneur. KlimaDAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization for Change.

Built on the energy-efficient Polygon network, KlimaDAO uses a stack of technologies to reduce market fragmentation and accelerate global climate finance delivery to sustainability projects.

They say you can fight climate change and earn rewards with KLIMA, a digital currency backed by tangible carbon assets. KlimaDAO has been one of the most successful, reporting the removal of 18 million tons of CO2.

This is a picture from the Medium article by Boyd Cohen, the CEO of IoMob, researcher, entrepreneur and author of three books. There are many more such projects, and we will see their impact on ecology from the perspective of several years.

So, can ReFi change the world? I don’t know, but I hope this movement will draw more attention to environmental issues and become not only a creative positioning in marketing strategies, but also a real effective mechanism for applying blockchain.

Do you like the idea of ReFi? Can this approach save the world or at least reduce the negative impact on the environment? Which project is your favorite? Share your thoughts in the comments!