Enabling Environmental Impact Token Finance

As many as 1.4 billion people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America lack access to stable, local banking and investment opportunities. Barriers to entry for many of those in poverty or living in less-developed areas include insufficient funds to start an account, no internet access to banking institutions, and lack of nearby operational banks. 

The inability to open a savings account -- or come up with the money to fund it -- can lead to increased financial instability. This in turn increases the likelihood that people living in rural areas of developing nations will feel they have to participate in environmentally detrimental work, such as cutting down trees to make charcoal, using unsustainable farming methods, or working for industries and corporations that value profit over climate stewardship. The results of these practices can be extreme erosion and desertification, exacerbated climate change, and unsustainable livelihoods. 

The destruction of natural resources, while providing momentary financial relief, ultimately leads to greater poverty, diminished health, and lower quality of life. Once the natural resources are diminished, industry moves to a different area, leaving an ecologically and financially impoverished area in its wake. Better banking solutions are needed to create financial stability, which will in turn enable people the opportunity to work in less environmentally-demanding jobs.

Greenstand operates an environmental fintech solution that enables users to earn real financial benefits by participating in ecological and climate adaptation activities. At the ground level, our technology provides a banking solution for people, predominately in the Global South, who lack access to stable, local banking and investment opportunities. It simultaneously creates long-term jobs for people taking environmental actions, especially reforestation work. 

Today we are in pilot mode, testing our technology in select locations around the globe. We've partnered with nearly 100 community-based organizations (CBOs) in 77 countries to implement our model in their underserved communities, giving those local organizations a starting point for bringing in financial support and effecting change. More than 6,000 tree growers are using our Treetracker app technology on their mobile phones and earning regular incomes at this moment.

When fully built out, our technology will give ground-level growers anywhere a way to access investment markets where they can trade or sell the environmental benefits they create. Our's might be the only system available today that enables earning, spending, and saving opportunities for the poorest of the world’s poor while also tracking reforestation results. 

Our system, built using open-source software, is available for free to any organization that wants to track, manage, and/or care for trees. The technology can also be adapted for other civic activities; one partner is even using it to document and reward food donation efforts. When our technology is fully built in 2026, revenue earned through our technology will fund Greenstand operations ongoing.  

Here is one way our technology can work: 

• An environmental donor contacts Greenstand about funding a tree-growing initiative. 

• We connect the funder with a trusted CBO partner based in an economically impoverished area the donor wants to support. CBO recruits local growers who will perform the work.

• CBO trains the growers and sets up a payment schedule; the growers know how much they will earn as they plant the seedlings and then provide monthly care (weeding and watering) throughout each seedling's vulnerable first two years. 

• Each time the growers work, they take pictures of each individual seedling using our Treetracker mobile phone app. The app works without the internet. Treetracker verifies each seedling's details using software, geotagging, and time stamps.

• Each time tree data is submitted and verified by Greenstand, we mint a Greenstand Impact Token. Here we earn 3% of the token value, usually a few cents per token.

• Because the grower was paid by the CBO (using the donor’s funds), the resulting token is deposited into the CBO’s Impact Wallet, where it can be saved or sent back to the donor.

• After the two years of donor/CBO payments are complete, the growers can earn their own Greenstand Impact Tokens by continuing to care for the trees and documenting their results. After we complete planned enhancements to our technology, growers will be able to sell or trade their Greenstand Impact Tokens directly on global environmental credit markets. 

Greenstand is working to help the poorest of the world's poor, especially those living in impoverished areas with limited access to basic banking and financial services and who stand to suffer the most from climate change impacts. 

We began developing our technology eight years ago in response to the social impacts we saw happening – and that were predicted to happen more often and to worsening degrees – across the globe. We set out to create an innovative, tech-based financial solution that provided sustainable banking, income generation, and reforestation opportunities in the most economically disadvantaged areas of the world. 

We’ve been piloting our technology in communities throughout South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and in South and East Asia, all areas that also contain the largest percentages of the world's unbanked individuals. Our solution impacts the lives of these people by simultaneously alleviating financial instability, creating long-term income opportunities, and combating climate change. 

Through the end of 2022, our technology has minted nearly 2 million Greenstand Impact Tokens, each one with transparent and immutable details of the environmental actions at its core. We work closely with 100 community-based organizations located across 77 countries. Today more than 6,000 growers around the world are using our technology to earn and save money by restoring the environment. All of our impact has been achieved using a beta software that was designed, developed, and launched using the donated efforts of more than 1,700 volunteer contributors.  

Greenstand provides a more accessible option for those who lack access to traditional banking opportunities. For those who have insufficient funds to open a traditional bank account, Greenstand provides a gateway to earn additional income and supplement existing resources. For those who lack internet or local access to a banking institution, Greenstand provides a mobile app that can be used in remote locations. 

Instead of requiring the proper identification and paperwork to open an account, Greenstand requires only a selfie to get started with us. Once fully developed, our solution will even give users in the most remote areas of the world direct access to global environmental credit markets, where they can sell or trade their assets. 

We understand the barriers facing the unbanked in accessing traditional financial savings and investment opportunities, and we strive to alleviate those barriers.

Greenstand has always had its hands, feet, and hearts at the ground level, where we believe the impact of our work deserves to be felt. Our roots are in Tanzania, where one of our founders still lives today. In our pilot phase, we currently work in close partnership with 100 community-based organizations (CBOs) and more than 6,000 grower partners located in 77 countries around the globe. When it’s important to understand what growers are thinking, what CBOs are doing, and what a specific community needs – we go straight to them for answers. 

Leaning on community-level feedback has always been core to who we are. When we created a custom-designed version of our Treetracker app for the City of Freetown in Sierra Leone, for example, app features were built and customized using insights gained at 310 public meetings and other input opportunities that took place before the launch of Freetown’s tree-growing initiative, which took place in 2020-2022. 

As a result of the technology shaped through this partnership, Freetown city officials are able to track and monitor the ongoing health of each planted tree. Officials estimate that 80% of those trees will grow to maturity, predominately because our app makes it easy for Freetown growers to earn ongoing incomes while providing two years of care for each seedling. We continue to stay in touch with our Freetown partners and we use their feedback and experiences to fine-tune the technology even more.

At the moment, Greenstand is preparing to launch a 24-month sprint-to-scale initiative (Jan. 2024 to Dec. 2025) in which we hope MIT Solve will play a part. During this sprint, we will add many of the enhancements our users tell us they want, such as increased data search functions, enhanced two-way communications through the app, the ability to identify more species of trees, more-precise geolocation accuracy, increased climate impact detail, and so on. 

This sprint includes five deep-and-wide research steps, which leverage a range of survey methods, including surveys through the app, online surveys, Zoom interviews, focus group sessions, and on-the-ground, in-country research at locations in two or more countries. 

This research will tap into the insights, perspectives, and opinions of current and prospective users of our Treetracker platform (growers, CBOs, and companies that integrate our technology into their online platforms). 

To put it succinctly, we have plans in place to better understand the needs of those we serve now and in the future, and to leverage their ideas, needs, and desires as we sprint our solution to scale.    

In its pilot stage, our technology currently supports:

More than 6,000 growers and nearly 100 community-based organizations in 77 countries, most of which are located in Latin America, Africa, or Asia. 

Ten companies have integrated our technology into their own websites, apps, or platforms, and use Greenstand Impact Tokens to incentivize customers and support their environmental goals. 

We also are partners with a handful of municipal governments, such as the leaders of Freetown, Sierra Leone, who leverage our technology to incentivize growers, monitor tree health, and track the results of their tree-growing activities over time.

Our interest in the MIT Solve grant is two-fold. 

First, having additional funding will help us move faster toward completing our technological framework, which in turn will enable us to scale faster and support more growers and partners who want to participate in sophisticated financial transactions, including selling or trading their tokens directly on global environmental credit markets. 

Second, access to MIT Solve team experts could significantly help us develop and deploy evaluation methodology to successfully and quantifiably measure our results and forecast possibilities. 

Before we can launch our 24-month sprint-to-scale initiative in January 2024, we need to identify evaluation methodology, establish relevant key performance indicators, calculate the cost-effectiveness of our solution, frame the metrics behind our pathway to scale, and set other evaluation goals. 

User feedback tells us our solution provides a much-needed financial solution and is able to drive funding and nature-based climate adaptation solutions to people living in the most remote, rural, and impoverished areas of the world. User feedback tells us our solution will practically scale itself.

But we need to do this right, and incorporating proper and accurate evaluation and methodology processes is key to getting it right. 

Most reforestation and afforestation companies working in the Global South today don’t have business models that cover all the bases. They don’t all, for example, ask community-based organizations how the project can work best for their area or incentivize local growers to care for seedlings throughout the seedlings’ vulnerable first two years. 

Few companies can prove that every seedling made it into the ground, or can document seedling health over time, or provide verifiable climate impact results for the actions that took place. And fewer yet seem to go out of their way to provide lasting economic opportunities for people living in economically impoverished areas.   

We offer a unique solution to help. Our technology, which is a mobile phone app and supporting dashboard, is built to help reforestation and afforestation organizations and companies anywhere in the globe. We’ve been testing and enhancing in pilot mode for the last few years, and with the help of MIT Solve and other grant partners, we’re going to sprint-to-scale before the start of 2026.  

Once our solution is fully executed and ready to scale in 2026, we believe our’s will be the only free, plug-and-play technology available to help reforestation and afforestation organizations:

• Provide verified climate impact results and receive Greenstand Impact Tokens they can sell or trade on global carbon credit markets.

• Manage and pay local growers as the growers weed and water the seedlings (documented with photos of every individual seedling at every monthly visit) throughout those vulnerable two first years. Our technology even verifies which seedling was photographed, at what time, and in what exact location.

• Communicate with donors and with growers through the same platform.

• Document the result of their efforts to create lasting economic benefits in impoverished areas and for women and disadvantaged populations. 

And for the grower side of the equation, our technology is a mobile phone banking system the growers can use to earn, spend, and save; and which (after 2025) will provide direct access to global environmental credit markets. 

Our technology also lets growers continue earning income after the seedlings are more than two years old. After two years, instead of the organization or company getting the environmental Greenstand Impact Tokens, the tokens go straight to the grower.

Our solution will catalyze broader positive impacts from others in this space. It will change financial markets, change funding approaches, and change the ways policymakers, government leaders, and environmental donors think. Our app has the power to underscore the current global mindset shift from “pay to plant” to “pay to grow.” 

We make it possible – and easy – for reforestation and afforestation organizations to work with local growers, pay for seedling care across two years, get photographic and verified proof that the work has taken place, and get environmental credits/tokens deposited into the online wallets right through the app. How cool is that?

Our technology is built from the idea that it’s possible to create a single tool that simultaneously will: 

• Provide long-term job opportunities to people living in rural, remote, and urban locations where reforestation and afforestation efforts are needed most.

• Help unbanked populations safely save, invest, and spend the incomes they earn.

• Support nature-based solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change, especially in the areas and for the populations most likely to suffer the worst.

• Provide transparent, verified measurable climate impact results that are captured on immutable Greenstand Impact Tokens that can be sold, traded, or saved.

Today these benefits are experienced by more than 6,000 people living throughout 77 countries who are participating in our pilot. Our impact goals are to reach more people, improve more lives, and raise more awareness. We envision a time when donors, government leaders, policymakers and others automatically choose nature-based solutions first and demand that climate adaptation projects are structured to put the needs and priorities of local people first. When this happens, the impact on people’s lives will indeed be transformational.  

The how is easy for us. We already know what to do and how to do it - and we have a 24-month sprint plan in place to get it all finished before the start of 2026. 

Quantifying the potential impact is hard. We need MIT Solve help for this. 

Last year alone we minted nearly 1 million Greenstand Impact Tokens and welcomed 2,227 new grower partners from 19 new countries and 32 new community-based organizations to Greenstand. 

We also expanded the features on our app, including increasing the number of language choices to nine and almost tripling the number of included tree species to 184. 

Please help us capture our baseline results appropriately and set up spot-on metrics that will be in place and demonstrate our results as we soar. 

Greenstand’s operational goals are directly aligned to 13 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Of these, we have prioritized the following four: 

• #1 End poverty: Our Greenstand Impact Token offers a financial solution that enables economic incentives for environmental solutions and is most powerful in remote and depleted areas where there is extreme poverty.

• #2 Zero hunger: Our technology enables income generation through land restoration and agroforestry, which creates sustainable food systems.

• #13 Climate action: Our technology and Greenstand Impact Token enables community and grower participation in nature-based climate solutions, and when fully built will enable community and grower participation in global environmental credit markets. 

• #5 Gender equity: Our technology enables women and underserved individuals to earn incomes for land restoration activities and participate in savings and investing opportunities. 

We now need help putting in place specific indicators to measure our progress and impact. During our 24-month sprint-to-scale initiative starting in January 2024, we will put in place multiple data-collection methods. 

Our priority is to measure the impact we have as we provide financial opportunities and serve economically disadvantaged areas, bolster the lives and abilities of women and underserved populations, and support climate adaptation. 

We intend to measure the benefits we bring both directly and indirectly, such as through improved community health and reduced hunger. Please help us do this correctly from the start.  

The impact of our solution is:

• Tree growers and others sell or trade the environmental benefits they create on global environmental credit markets and as local community currency.

• Climate funders confidently fund global environmental initiatives knowing the activities will have verified results and their funds will create long-term income opportunities for local growers and community-based organizations (CBOs).

• Improved health, higher quality of life, improved land quality, improved climate conditions, higher earnings, and decreased levels of poverty in areas where Greenstand technology has been put into use.   

Our outcomes include:

• Increased numbers of growers and CBOs using our Treetracker app and companies who integrate our technology into their computer systems. 

• Heightened global awareness and understanding of the “pay to grow” mindset and acknowledgment of the importance of funding tree care activities throughout a seedling’s vulnerable first two years. 

• Quantified results of social impact. 

Our outputs include:

• Technological enhancements that improve the effectiveness, usefulness, and scalability of our technology.

• Comprehensive market research that captures feedback from current and prospective partners.

• Communications and marketing that promote the benefits of Greenstand technology and the importance of pay-to-grow priorities.

• Verification of environmental results submitted by Treetracker app users.

• Income, savings, and investment opportunities for unbanked individuals.

• Access to global environmental credit markets where local growers and others can sell or trade their Greenstand Impact Tokens.

• Framework in place for measuring social impact.

 We have planned the following activities:

• Executing a wide-and-deep feedback-collection process that leverages multiple feedback tools, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and field testing of the enhanced technology and communications tools at locations in at least two countries. 

• Posting social media marketing pieces throughout the project.

• Capturing in-country photos of and real-life stories from growers and CBOs using our technology. Using these examples in communications and marketing to raise awareness and educate key stakeholders.

• Obtaining feedback from key stakeholders about current technology, technology enhancements (during planning and execution phases), and communications and marketing (during planning and execution phases). Leveraging an iterative process to make ongoing improvements to technology and communications throughout the project.

• Developing a robust kit of communications tools and messaging, to be tested in-country and then deployed fully at the end of the project. 

• Establishing a set of methodologies and KPIs that measure results, including the impact our solution has on stakeholders.  

Our project inputs include time, effort, knowledge, and money. 

In January 2024 we will launch our 24-month sprint-to-scale initiative, to be paid for by a combination of grants and in-kind donations, to be informed by experts in the field of evaluations and methodology, and to be shaped by iterations of feedback provided by current and prospective user groups. 

Our goal is to have our technology fully built by 2026, making us self-sustaining through a 3% fee earned when each Greenstand Impact Token is minted.  

In 2015, Greenstand’s founders set out to create a tech-based solution to simultaneously support reforestation, give unbanked individuals a way to save and invest, create new jobs with sustainable incomes (especially in economically disadvantaged areas off the internet grid), and provide verifiable results for ground-level climate actions. 

They could have built a proprietary system and charged big bucks for its use. Instead they built this fintech solution using “open source” computer software. The coding and technology behind us are transparent, inclusive, and available for anyone to see – and use – for free.

More than 90% of our achievements to date are a result of volunteer efforts. Over time, more than 1,700 individuals – many of them experts in their fields of science, technology, finance, agroforestry, social sciences, and communications – have donated countless hours to make our vision a reality. Like Wikipedia, leveraging an open-source volunteer community will always be core to who we are. 

Today, Greenstand is driven by a volunteer team of more than 70 active contributors. A handful of contributors do receive small stipends for their work, which they provide at less than half the going market rate. In the last 12 months, our contributors have donated more than 10,000 hours - which at market rates is worth more than $1M USD. 

We are proud to make substantial technical advancements on such a limited budget and to provide equal and ethical employment opportunities across all continents. 

Our engineering team taps into programs like The Last Mile, which trains incarcerated individuals as coders and developers to prepare them for employment upon release. We also actively recruit developers who live in Africa, Asia, or South America. Currently, more than 60 percent of our project contractors are based in Africa.

We operate using a 'build before buy' mentality, in part because we want to help individuals at all skill levels gain experience and confidence while performing real work. 

Basic overview of our technology: 

• The Treetracker app allows planters to verify tree planting and tree survival with geo-tagged, time-stamped images. 

• Tree images and data points are analyzed using the treetracker-admin-client and displayed on the treetracker-web-map-client. This map can be embedded on partner websites, allowing the partner’s clients to see their planted and mapped trees. 

• The wallet-api allows people to create/register wallets and transfer tokens. Each Greenstand Impact Token is based on a verified ecological impact, such as growing trees. 

• The tokens can be traded via an API. 

The engineering division is divided into many small teams. Our current team organization:

• Admin Panel Application

• Impact Map Web Application

• Wallet Application

• Mobile ( composed of Android and iOS teams)

• Machine Learning

• Wallet Microservice

• Application Platform

• GIS

Greenstand's entire software stack is based on open-source software solutions and development frameworks. 

The most important software solutions we use are: 

• Kubernetes

• PostgrSql

• Airflow

• Keycloak

• React

• Node Js 

• Material UI

• Github

• Grafana + Prometheus

• Loki

• ArgoCD 

• Self-managed RabbitMQ

• Ambassador 

• Ckan

• Solr

• K6

• Nextjs

• Cypress

• Terraform

• Bastion

• Botkube

• Pgpool

• Jaeger

Greenstand takes pride in the power that comes from practicing diversity, equity, and inclusivity in everyday operations. We hold up diversity, equality, and inclusivity as a key part of our organizational goals. 

Our staff and volunteers come from throughout the world. We do not unlawfully discriminate internally (in administrative and program operations) or externally (in the recipients of our services) on the basis of race, political orientation, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, national or social origin, ancestry, economic or social status, place of residence, marital or family status, veteran status, health status, or mental or physical disability. 

The diverse backgrounds and life experiences of our contributors are a big part of what makes Greenstand special. To contribute, engage, and hone your skills, all you need is stable WiFi and a willingness to learn. 

As part of our 24-month sprint-to-scale project (2024-2025) we will undertake, we will hire approximately 35 full-time and part-time contributors (a handful will become paid full-time staff, which we intend to keep in place after our technology is fully built and mature).  

For the help we need during and after our sprint-to-scale, we will work to elevate existing volunteers or hire contractors from underserved talent pools, such as developers from low-income nations and previously incarcerated individuals.

Please see the Greenstand Social Business Model illustration below.

Our revenue model has three phases: 

• Phase 1 (startup through end of 2023): 

  • Financial contributions from founder (David Ezra Jay)

  • In-kind system donations (Slack, Google suite, cloud storage, etc.)

  • Skilled labor contributions from 1,700+ volunteers since 2015 (worth about $1m/year)

  • Grants from multiple organizations (see partial list at end of application)

• Phase 2 (sprint-to-scale 2024+2025):

  • Skilled labor contributions from roughly 70 volunteer contributors who say they intend to participate during our sprint-to-scale (est. value $800k to $1m)

  • Multiple grants to total approx. $2.5 million. 

  • In-kind system donations (Slack, Google, cloud storage, etc.)

  • In-kind expertise from grant partners (i.e. evaluation and methodology, technology, etc.)

• Phase 3 (system maturity/ready to scale):

  • Ongoing revenue from a 3% fee earned on each minted impact token (est. $400k/yr by 2028)

  • In-kind system donations (Slack, Google, cloud storage, etc.)

  • Skilled labor contributions from volunteers seeking to give back, learn new skills, and gain experience through Greenstand (est. value $500k/yr)   

Relevant goals and activities

Donor(s)

Project budget (in USD)

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH: 

Develop two-way communications through Treetracker app and support “pay to grow” model, including community activation and mobilization.

$134,000

Ministry of Finance Sierra Leone:

Add features and services to the technical platform to support and provide services for the planting, tracking and ongoing payments to grow a million trees in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone.

$140,000

The Nature Conservancy:

Create the Greenstand Tree tracking and Token wallet system

$65,000

Social Alpha Foundation:

Advancing and testing the Greenstand token model

$60,000

World Bank Group:

Create a technical platform to support and provide services for the planting, tracking and making ongoing payments to grow a million trees in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone.

$30,000

World Bank Group:

Open platform data management and analytics services to support a community-based mapping survey for trees.

$20,000

Comcast:

Advancing tree image upload capabilities with smallholder farmers in remote edge networks

$15,000

World Resource Institute:

Technical services to plant and track a million trees in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

$10,000

Just Diggit:

Data and Project support for TreeByTree integration, including set up of Lead Foundation structure and onboarding process.

$1,000

Forestmatic:

Provide a framework for millions of trees to be tagged, tokenized, and secured using the Greenstand Token System.

Fee of 2 cents per minted token

Grant award details and additional examples available upon request.