US-based environmental credit platform Regen Network Development aims to expand the scope of what can be listed on its registry beyond credits in its next version.
Regen Registry 2.0 aims to address fragmentation in the voluntary “ecocredit” market by enabling the tracking of a range of conservation initiatives, said Sam Bennetts, product manager at the organisation, during a webinar last week.
“We want to redefine, or revolutionise, the concept of what an environmental registry can track … including the registration of documents, a crediting protocol, legal contracts, and environmental entities … like rivers or ecosystems,” said Bennetts.
“We want to expand our scope to serve as a hub for the broader space of ecological claims and contracting, as opposed to just credits.”
The existing Regen Registry is a system for trading ecological credits, including carbon and biodiversity credits, backed by a blockchain record of transactions. Last week, Regen reported the sale of over 92,000 biodiversity credits worth a total of $129,000.
Registry 2.0 does not have a launch date yet as it is in the early stages of development.
SHIFTING DYNAMICS
The forthcoming framework aims to leverage new tools like AI to support a broader range of ecology-linked communities and projects, Bennetts said.
“Over the last four years, we’ve seen a lot of changes in the market. The growing urgency around international climate initiatives, technological advancements, shifting market dynamics, has created kind of an explosion of new initiatives,” said Bennetts.
With this innovation has come increased demand for transparency and real time verification, he said.
“There’s more of a shift towards wanting to have more inclusive models approaches, including traditional ecological knowledge, community-led initiatives.”
However, barriers for these smaller organisations remain, inspiring Regen to come up with the idea for the next version of the registry.
“Registry 2.0 represents a strategic pivot to position us, not necessarily as competitors in the race to develop the best marketplace, but more as providers of neutral, interoperable tools that serve a broader array of stakeholders in the ecological crediting and contracting ecosystem,” said Bennetts.
The next version will conform to one taxonomy or data standard to allow for interoperability and readability, he added.
Some examples of who could use Registry 2.0:
- Government agencies registering policies or grant programmes
- Indigenous Peoples or local communities registering traditional ecological knowledge or farming practices to preserve and share their knowledge
- Marketplaces like Patch to sell carbon credits
- Carbon ratings agencies to provide assessments on credits
- Academic institutions and research organisations accessing data to advance scientific understanding
- Organisations tracking their own internal data, events, activities, and claims related to regenerative initiatives, even if they are not issuing credits
Last month, Regen said it was trialling a feature to enable the publishing of project data, connected to blockchain, in a bid to improve the storytelling around their environmental credits.
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
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