How did Regen Network sell 100,000 soil carbon credits to a giant company like Microsoft? Moreover, why did Regen Network decide not to build on top of Ethereum? An interesting conversation with Christian Shearer, CEO of Regen Network and the co-founder of Terra Genesis International.
LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATION ON:
Regen Network aims to align economics with ecology to drive regenerative land management. With Christian we discuss some of the blockchain solutions Regen Network is currently working on as well as the role of remote sensing and blockchains when it comes to selling ecosystem services.
What are Blockchains?
Blockchains are publicly accessible digital records of all transactions within a chain. Since applications can be built on top of the blockchain, Regen Network created the regen registry. Christian defines the regen registry as a carbon and ecosystem service registry, which brings in a credit issuance application for the farmers and the ranchers.
“The region ledger or blockchain is a domain specific blockchain to the domain of ecological data, agreements or contracts. It is a chain that our company has been developing in coordination with Cosmos.” – Christian Shearer
What is Remote Sensing and How Does it Work?
Christian shares how remote sensing helped Regen Network establish an interesting deal with Microsoft in terms of carbon credits. He discusses how their science team has developed a remote sensing methodology that minimizes the need to acquire soil samples from the ground.
Regen Network has developed a way to take virtual samples across entire landscapes and obtain a nuanced understanding of the soil and carbon.
“Rather than taking 200 to 300 soil samples, we take between 20 to 30 soil samples. (…) We take the exact GPS locations of where the samples were taken. And then we use remote sensing satellite data to correlate the data and the figures we found on the ground with the data that’s coming from remote sensing.” – Christian Shearer
How to Sell to A Large Corporation?
Microsoft, from 189 responses of various different projects, has chosen 15 companies to source their carbon from and Regen Network was selected as one of them. Moreover, Microsoft is looking forward to Regen Network’s methodology of remote sensing and inference of carbon sequestration potential.
“They were really inspired and wanted to promote Regen Nework’s methodology. We were the only soil carbon credit that they purchased. The others were forestry credits and direct air capture credits.” – Christian Shearer
Why is Regen Network Only Measuring up to 15cm?
Regen Network only measures the top 15 centimeters of the soil since the satellite currently has no way of measuring and penetrating the soil carbon deeper. This is one of the ways this methodology is underestimating the total amount of soil carbon, especially in grassland systems, wherein there can be a huge amount of depth in soil and organic carbon.
If Regen Network were to measure deeper, they would have to revert back to other methodologies where they take the samples at depth and then average these with samples across the landscape.
“To be truly in service to these land stewards that are sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere and creating a positive impact for all of us, it would be best if Regen Network could be even more accurate and measure to more depth.” – Christian Shearer
Other Important Points Discussed
Koen and Christian discussed these points in this episode:
- What Christian thinks should smart investors, who want to invest in Reg ag and food should look out for?
- What Christian would do if she were in charge of a one billion dollar investment portfolio tomorrow morning?
- What Christian would do if he was given a magic wand that could change one thing overnight in the agriculture and food spac
To know more about Christian Shearer and Regen Network, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christian has worked in ecological agriculture for 15 years, primarily with farmers in Southeast Asia. As a co-founder of Terra Genesis International, he worked with natural products brands, helping them to invest into creating regenerative supply systems. Christian is passionate about accelerating the adoption of regenerative agriculture. He is a member of the Board of Directors.
Links:
- Regen Network
- Region Network Resources
- The Wilmot project in Australia
- Geoff Lawton permaculture
- Nutiva
- Mega Food
- Microsoft Deal
- Cosmos blockchain
- Blogpost Regen Network and the Blockchain
- Regen Network Webinar on Remote Sensing
Linked interviews:
- Interview with Ethan Solovjev
- Interview with Bert Glover – Investing $160M to regenerate Australian soil
- Interview with Bert Glover – Invest in Agtech to Build Soil at Scale
- Interview with Gregory Landua
- Interview with Walter Jehne
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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.