Everything is converging …

Climate change. Water scarcity. Biodiversity loss. Rampant inequity. Lack of trust in carbon markets. Fractured ESG reporting.

… and everything’s at stake.

Can we express value beyond currency?

If we could, would that help financial markets, NGOs, companies, and foundations align and rapidly deploy capital that addresses global challenges?

Can we get out of doing less bad and focus on doing more good?

Imagine.

Imagine what would happen if we could organize carbon markets with the same framework as ESG?

How would they align?

Not on carbon alone.

But on a framework of ecological benefits.

Air. Water Soil Biodiversity. Equity (And carbon.)

Call it EBF. The Ecological Benefits Framework.

It’s a shared framework to align carbon markets, financial decision making, and ESG reporting.

And we’ve already started.

EBF will provide the foundational market architecture to accelerate the coordinated delivery of financial and environmental impacts.

Hundreds of stakeholders across carbon markets, ReFi, blockchain, web3, conservation, regenerative agriculture, and corporate ESG reporting began meeting in September 2022 to develop a more equitable framework in response to climate change (and much more).

EBF is …

… A shared market architecture that increases transparency, trust, quality, and equity in global carbon and ecological benefits markets

… Stakeholder driven, guided by domain experts in climate change mitigation, regenerative finance, carbon markets, and ESG reporting

… Supported by a Knowledge To Action platform that features tools to mobilize, align, and activate ongoing collaboration and implementation

… Backed by mission-driven, strategically aligned foundations and corporate funders

… Supported by a pipeline of high-quality supply adapted to this new framework and data standard

… Aligned with large amounts of pooled capital for advanced market commitments

Transformational new systems for public good require collective action AND collective support.

And it begins with you.

OUR GAMEPLAN

Carbon markets face a number of existential challenges: misinformation, lack of trust, and misalignment among key actors across the value chain. Broadening our definition of these carbon markets to encompass the full suite of ecological benefits—air, water, soil, biodiversity, equity, and carbon—will hasten literacy and fluency among investors, consumers, policymakers, companies, and the NGO community. The more educated people (and institutions) become, the greater their trust and willingness to invest in this vital sector.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THREE TOOLS will accelerate industry alignment on a common set of principles, best practices, and shared language for companies and organizations working at the intersection of blockchain, carbon markets, ESG, ecological benefits, and climate change.

I. ACTIVATOR

We are bringing together the leading experts across the carbon market value chain to develop a new model for financial institutions and the public to support positive planetary impacts.

There is no standard definition or mutually agreed-upon framework for mission-driven companies to define their carbon-neutral and ESG commitments. To rapidly accelerate alignment among a diverse set of stakeholders across these value chains, The Lexicon will create an activator. These highly-structured, outcome-focused initiatives accelerate the transformation of good ideas into industry-aligned, actionable tools and intelligence. The Lexicon does this by bringing together domain experts to collectively problem-solve and build solutions that would otherwise remain beyond reach. For this initiative, The Lexicon will mobilize and convene domain experts across five intersecting value chains:

PAYMENT FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is a mechanism used by governments, foundations, NGOs, and individuals to compensate natural resource managers for supporting the provision of ecosystem services—such as carbon sequestration—that benefit society as a whole. In some cases, this requires bespoke contracts or agreements, with other PES schemes linked to carbon markets through the creation of carbon credits that can be bought and sold on the market (i.e., a natural resource manager might agree to implement management practices that sequester carbon and can be verified by a third party to receive carbon credits to sell on a carbon market to generate additional income).

This work stream will examine historical precedents for these payments, and explore common methods to standardize the description of these activities.

ECOLOGICAL BENEFITS AND MRV: Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV), in the context of ecological benefits, refers to the performance assessment or process of measuring and reporting on the environmental outcomes of a project or policy, and then verifying that the reported outcomes are accurate. MRV methods include: direct measurement sampling and modeling remote sensing qualitative assessment (stakeholder engagement) independent verification This work stream will endeavor to perform a top-level landscape assessment of protocols, standards, and MRV methods used for air, water, soil, biodiversity, equity, and carbon. This information will be gathered for the purpose of defining an adaptive framework. The goal will be to explore how this can be captured using a sector-based approach.

25 CASE STUDIES (SELECTED BY REGION, TYPE OF PROJECT, TYPE OF REGISTRY): Projects placed on carbon markets are defined using an array of widely recognized standards, as well as region-specific or sector-specific approaches. These are usually selected based on the context and goal of a project; in some cases, a combination of methods may be used to ensure the robustness of the verification process.

This work stream will select a representative sample of 20 carbon projects from across the globe. They will be chosen based on three criteria: placement on established carbon credit trading platforms representative of specific sectors (i.e., biochar, seaweed, methane digesters, forestry, mangrove restoration, conservation, and rewinding) representative of equitable benefit sharing

ReFi: Regenerative finance (REFI) is a form of impact investing that finances projects and businesses which generate positive impacts on the environment and society. In the context of ecosystem services, REFI can provide the capital necessary to restore and protect ecosystems through a variety of activities: reforestation, wetlands restoration, and conservation of endangered species, as well as investments in sustainable agriculture.

This work stream will develop an “Investor checklist” that defines the fundamental criteria investors look for in a carbon project, including methodologies to measure environmental and social benefits such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving natural resources, or improving the well-being of local communities.

Digital Infrastructure (Blockchain and Web3): Blockchain technology and Web3 (the decentralized web built on blockchain) can be valuable tools in the fight against climate change. Blockchains can facilitate the building of secure and transparent systems that ensure the legitimacy of carbon offset projects. Building trust will accelerate the deployment of capital into carbon markets, especially when these carbon credits can demonstrate their contributions to multiple ecological benefits. Finally, Web3 can enable investment opportunities in climate solutions through tokenization, and in the case of ecological benefits, through the creation of bundled NFTs. This will increase their accessibility to retail investors who want to achieve verifiable positive impacts through their investments.

These groups (featuring 40 members per) will embark on a highly-structured six-month sprint that aligns each sector both individually and collectively on principles and best practices that increase trust, confidence, and transparency in support of a sector-based ecological benefits marketplace, standardized corporate ESG reporting, and standardized description of carbon projects, all to help carbon markets better respond to climate change.

The work will are broken into these phases:

PHASE I: PRE-PRODUCTION (Dec 2022-Jan 2023). Identity and onboard participants from across five value chains PHASE II: PRODUCTION (Feb-May 2023). Curate cadenced meetings for five months, defining principles and practices in key target areas PHASE III: DELIVERABLE (May-July 2023). Produce an adaptive framework for sector-based ecological benefits token interface

II. COMMON LANGUAGE

Establishing consensus on a common language, shared definitions, and protocols for ecological benefits is the first step to placing projects in a marketplace. This agreement and standardization are vital because it allows project owners and purchasers to have greater visibility into and reach an agreement on both the quantitative and qualitative data used to make ecological benefit claims.

Key to the deployment of this platform will be the cross-platform adoption of a machine-readable and universally-standardized visual language that explains the full range of ecological services and benefits associated with each project. This would be a modular bundle consisting of six tokens (NFTs), with each representing a distinct ecological benefit. This universally recognized, machine-readable digital fingerprint, with highly personalized data, will explain the attributes (score, data fidelity, traceability, quantitative data, qualitative data) associated with each ecological benefit. We will soon embark on the next phase of this work, building an expanded visual language to explain the intersection of blockchain, with domain experts gathered across five intersecting value chains:

regenerative finance (REFI) payment for ecosystem services Case Studies for Ecological Benefits Projects ecological benefits and MRV Blockchain and Web3

III. STORYTELLING

Policymakers. Consumers. Investors. ESG leads at Fortune 500 companies. Each of these constituencies have skepticism and valid concerns about the efficacy and truthfulness of claims made about blockchains and carbon markets.

User stories and case studies are useful, but they are often text and data heavy. They fail to connect on the emotional level because they don’t foreground people and the communities in which they live.

They also lack portability. If I want to share a case study or key piece of data, I have to get you to look at a screen, a website, or a pdf.

Creating a story that shows the vital energy and transformative activities happening at the intersection of carbon markets, climate change, and blockchain is best done through stories that put a face and a place on data. These stories are even better served when they are platform agnostic when they are portable when they have the ability to be wherever people gather.

The Lexicon will create two dozen informational artworks, each depicting one core concept of principle at the heart of this climate/carbon/blockchain nexus. This will rapidly increase the literacy and foundational fluency that influential leaders need to make critical decisions that move this space forward. From DAVOS to COP and all places in between, we have the opportunity to define the conversation by introducing and explaining the most critical concepts to a global audience.