Editorial Notes (vol. 15) – What the hell is ReFi?

There’s been a lot of talk about blockchain technology’s impact on the climate, and climate change in general. If you’ve been in Web3 for a while, you’ve might have seen Polygon’s plan of being a green – carbon negative blockchain, Sushi’s partnership with KlimaDAO to offset the carbon footprint of swaps, Celo’s Climate Collective, and DeFi for the People initiatives, etc.

What all of these have in common is their relation to ReFi – regenerative finance and in this week’s feature we’ll check out just what ReFi is through the lens of projects building in this space.

What the Hell is ReFi?

Similar to DeFi’s goal of creating decentralized versions of existing financial products and new DeFi native primitives, to enable anyone with an internet connection to partake in a better financial system, ReFi focuses on improving the health and biodiversity of the environment and communities by utilizing new financial and economic models.

ReFi has found the most promise in carbon offsetting and broader environmental space, however, it has the potential to go beyond sequestering carbon and move into restoring biodiversity and cultivating communities, and making the planet better for all through innovative approaches.

Let’s take a look at some of the projects building the future of regenerative finance👇

Help poor communities through impactMarket’s poverty alleviation protocol.

ImpactMarket is a decentralized poverty alleviation protocol. They have built an open, free, and borderless financial infrastructure that enables any vulnerable community to implement poverty alleviation mechanisms like Universal Basic Income.

To become a part of the project, simply apply a community, set UBI parameters, and start adding the beneficiaries, who will be able to claim a basic income. Those who wish to contribute to the communities in need can donate with full transparency and without intermediaries. As of right now, more than 45 thousand people have received help, with a total of 2.9m cUSD being distributed – to keep up with their numbers, check out their dashboard where they keep track of the key metrics.

Toucan – bringing programmable carbon credits to Web3.

By improving infrastructure for environmental assets in Web3, they help to solve key carbon market issues – fragmentation, inefficiency, a lack of uniform data, and limited access

Toucan has built a suite of modular tools and products such as Toucan Bridge, Meta Registries, and Carbon Pools, making it easy for others to integrate climate finance into other Web3 products.

Users can now access new ways of turning carbon credits into productive, yield-bearing assets, integrate carbon with NFT projects for planet positive works of art, add tokenized carbon credits as a diversified collateral type in decentralized finance, diversify treasury or portfolio holdings with tokenized real-world carbon credits, and more.

Own, track, and showcase verified carbon removal with Nori.

Nori is a blockchain-backed Carbon Removal Marketplace that connects real-world carbon removal suppliers to companies and individuals seeking to negate their carbon footprint. Currently, Nori sources carbon removals by working with regenerative farmers who are sequestering and storing carbon dioxide in their soils.

KlimaDAO – the DAO behind the carbon-backed algorithmic currency KLIMA.

KlimaDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization and DeFi protocol that aims to drive climate action via a carbon-backed, algorithmic currency - its KLIMA token. Its goal is to encourage emissions cuts by leveraging Web3 technologies that enable coordination and mass participation within the carbon markets. Every KLIMA token is backed by a real-world carbon asset and can be used to offset carbon emissions, interact with DeFi applications, and get exposure to the rapidly growing global carbon market.

KUMO – the green MakerDAO.

The KUMO protocol is set to go live sometime in 2022. It is a decentralized borrowing protocol that allows you to draw 0% interest loans against supported natural assets used as collateral. The loans are paid out in collateralized stablecoin KUSD pegged to the USD. By enabling the tokenization of carbon offsets and holding of these assets while retaining liquidity over the investment and earning extra yield through their protocol, they’ll greatly reduce the opportunity cost of owning carbon credits. Therefore, carbon credits will be more attractive to the investors, creating more demand, increasing their value, and allowing them to finance more carbon sequestration projects.

Offset your carbon footprint with Offsetra and estimate the carbon emissions of your on-chain activity.

Offsetra has created an easy way for retail and bulk buyers of carbon offsets solely from the Verra Registry – a market leader in voluntary carbon offsets, which ensures the quality of carbon offsets. However, they don’t just sell certified offset credits. Offsetra focuses on building trust among the communities and finding the best projects to optimize the reduction of emissions through their services such as corporate carbon footprint analysis, bulk offsetting, etc. And through their work, they’ve been able to offset over 1 million tonnes of carbon.

Offsetra has also developed a product called carbon.fyi, that allows users of Ethereum to estimate their carbon emissions from transactions and gas fees, by simply inputting their Ethereum address.

Participate in social investing with EthicHub and improve the lives of small farmers.

Improve the living standard of small farming communities by investing in their projects, buying their coffee, or providing liquidity for their loans. Now you can quickly, safely, and easily generate great social impact. EthicHub connects farmers who do not have access to a bank loan with investors seeking greater profitability or who want to generate social impact. EthicHub also negotiates the contracts for purchases of coffee by large companies and by doing so guarantees the repayment of the loan to investors.

Since its inception, EthicHub has intermediated more than $2M in loans and is helping over 1250 families in 21 communities.

Invest in high-potential individuals and share in their success with Talent Protocol.

Talent Protocol is a network where high-potential individuals can build an on-chain resume and launch a talent token, allowing anyone to easily invest in their careers. Supporters can discover top talent and contribute to their professional journey. Network rewards and exclusive perks offered by talent incentivize supporters to invest in talent's careers and be rewarded for their growth.

Talents can take ownership of their career by launching their own token, which transforms a person's network into a committed community that is incentivized to help them succeed.

Regen Network – unlocking Web3 ReFi by originating digital carbon assets in the interchain economy.

Regen Network is a project bringing sustainability and environmentalism to the Cosmos ecosystem. The innovative network is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain focused on ecological data, assets, and agreements, enabling multiple registries to communicate and transact with each other producing a public ecological accounting system

It can be used by researchers to access a global incentivized peer-to-peer ecological data market, companies to invest in their supply system resiliency, mitigate environmental degradation, or as an approach to corporate social responsibility, government agencies to verify and support their land management programs and achieve their climate accord commitments, and others, making it an integral part of the ReFi infrastructure.