A US-based environmental trading platform has announced the listing of 10,000 voluntary biodiversity credits generated by Colombian developer Terrasos.

The partnership between Terrasos and Regen Network Development was first announced in January, and the credits are now officially available for sale on the latter’s Marketplace.

Verified by KPMG, each unit represents the protection of 10 square meters of conserved or restored ecosystems in the Colombian habitat bank El Globo for 30 years.

Terrasos’ units, called ‘tebu’, are outcome-based credits, which means that, beyond early investments, payments are only delivered once outcomes are achieved.

“Each of our credits is a positive and permanent contribution to biodiversity,” Mariana Sarmiento, general manager of Terrasos, said during an online launch event Wednesday.

Terrasos determine the number of credits that a project can issue according to different factors: how threatened an ecosystem is, how it contributes to landscape connectivity, the duration of the project, and the number of activities that are going to take place in the area.

To date, the Colombian company has released 20% of the credits related to El Globo project, one of the few remnants of the Native High Andean Forest still preserved in the region, registered as a habitat bank in 2021.

The percentage of each sale depends on the cash flow needed, Sarmiento said, and the company plans to issue two other sets in the future, each accounting for 40% of the total.

On the Regen Marketplace, the price of a single credit is around $25. According to Sarmiento, the price is associated with the management and stewardship costs.

“By purchasing a credit, you are paying for activities such as the land sourcing and due diligence, the trees and planting, monitoring permits, and so on.”

Source: Terrasos

The money collected from the sales of the voluntary biodiversity credits will be managed by a trust with a governance structure that includes the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) and Terrasos, which aims to ensure transparency in all transactions.

“The partnership with Regen Network will allow the Terrasos biodiversity units to have a tokenisation mechanism, which will strengthen traceability throughout the value chain and ensure transparency,” said Sarmiento.

“Regen Marketplace runs on a public blockchain ledger that directly connects buyers and sellers,” added Gregory Landua, CEO of Regen Network Development.

In March, Regen Network announced the sale of biodiversity credits from a jaguar conservation pilot over a 10,000-hectare area in the Ecuadorian jungle, developed by the Fundacion Pachamama and Indigenous Peoples from the local Sharamentsa community.

Speaking to Carbon Pulse last month, Landua said that the demand for biodiversity credits from companies still stands below Regen’s target.

However, while players in the carbon space do not yet have the confidence to foray into the market, the nascent biodiversity market can be a complementary scheme to carbon, Sarmiento said during the launch event.

“Not only are they complementary, but they also have the potential to fill the gap in conservation finance that carbon markets do not have,” she said.

Terrasos initially offered units through the Climate Trade platform.

By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com

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