Soil Carbon Sequestration Audit

[IMPACT]

CA summary

Our proposal is a feasibility study that will specifically focus on the use of blockchain for Major Agri farming businesses that want to be recognised for using carbon-negative farming methods to pull carbon from the air and putting it back into the ground.

The resultant whitepaper will set out any gaps in capability between the blockchain capability and business use cases and how they can be resolved.

This is a client backed use case – proposed by two of our clients, both of whom are major European farming groups – with revenues of over $1bn between them.

Agribusinesses such as our clients, want to prove provenance of carbon-negative farming methods as a differentiator but don’t have reliable solutions.

The whitepaper will be driven by the needs of the use case companies that are already on our client list.

The whitepaper

The first step is to understand the gap between the capability of technology and the need of ‘business’, and to then close that gap with a viable solution.

This proposal is one of four feasibility studies that will research real-world business use cases in the context of Cardano blockchain capability. Each will result in a blueprint with steps for blockchain developers to deliver the business needs towards a future, proof of concept MVP.

Our proposal is to undertake a feasibility study and produce a whitepaper that will succinctly describe how the Cardano blockchain can facilitate the proof of Soil-based Carbon Sequestration by farming businesses.

We expect the whitepaper to produce a blueprint for creating applications that will deliver on this specific use case.

The use case

The companies in the use case, that we will reference, are two large UK Agricultural businesses that operate across the spectrum of farming activities, in the UK Europe and Australia. These businesses are highly innovative in the Agri sector – both leveraging links with the Cambridge University, National Bodies, and other innovation centres. They have an understanding of Blockchain technology already and have been pivoting towards becoming Impact focussed businesses for several years now. They also recognise the value in differentiating the quality of their product, their operations and their brand, and the ability to generate revenue through proof of soil-based sequestration and the carbon credits and certificates associated with it. Such a solution will generate new and exciting B2B and B2C opportunities that will better engage their partners, consumers and employees, as they strive to become Impact focused Farming businesses.

Our proposal is for a feasibility study that will investigate how the businesses and the Agri Industry’s needs can be translated into technical process descriptions that can then be assessed by Cardano blockchain developers. Where gaps between needs and capability are identified, the resultant whitepaper will describe the technical development steps needed to provide the Cardano blockchain capability to the Agricultural sector of the economy.

The resultant whitepaper will set out any gaps in capability between the blockchain capability and business use cases and how they can be resolved.

Current Reality

There is desire in the use case companies to embrace blockchain technology aligned with a clear business case. How the Cardano blockchain can enable the proof of Carbon Soil Sequestration is understood, but it is not sufficiently articulated or described in new business processes that are truly Impact driven.

Ventures have already been built as an engine to encourage farmers to use carbon-negative farming methods to pull carbon from the air and put it back into the ground.

As an example, One such venture Nori has raised $7 million of venture capital. The company is also exploring new sources for carbon capture, further building its carbon removal marketplace, and releasing a token to facilitate it all.

Ventures such as Nori focuses on carbon removal rather than emissions reductions or avoidances. Its marketplace provides financial rewards to farmers, who use regenerative farming practices that involve soil carbon sequestration. Soil sequestration is the first of Nori’s carbon removal offerings, with additional methodologies coming to market in the future.

To date, the company has around 10 farms on its program, has distributed $1 million to its farmers and has seen around 2,200 transactions from buyers for carbon credits.

However, there is a painful irony inherent in Nori’s operations for removing carbon as they are run on Ethereum - one of the most wasteful blockchains in the world, although they are moving to Polygon.

Agribusinesses want to prove provenance of carbon-negative farming methods as a differentiator but don’t have reliable solutions that are Impact driven – i.e. with a low carbon footprint themselves, and that can be grown into a coherent integrated solution set that covers auditability of carbon capture – down to nutrient growth measurement evident from such soil carbon capture.

Our proposal will investigate the needs of the business and articulate these in the form of a set of requirements for Cardano developers.

The solution that we propose will present a pathway that describes a meaningful real-world business use case that has a clear impact.

It will achieve this by:

·     Understanding the gaps between real-world business needs and the technical capability of Cardano blockchain to prove Soil Carbon Sequestration, and how to close those gaps.

·     Presenting the solution described as a configurable product that can be employed by companies operating in a value chain with clear opportunities to be gained from product and brand differentiation.

The solution will:

·     Describe a product that supports a business solution

·     Increase the number of companies proposing and being exposed to Cardano solutions

·     Provide the platform to facilitate the proof of Soil Carbon Sequestration and integration with carbon credit and certification schemes

Challenge – identify key technical partners to assist in describing the gap between capability and delivery of the blockchain-based solution/s

o  Mitigation – Engage with the Catalyst co-ordination team to identify appropriate partners

Challenge – Describing the solution that delivers the outcomes required by the business use case in terms that will lead to a coherent scope of work for the development phase of the project in the future

o  We will partner with developers to learn what technical development needs to occur to technically deliver the solution, and how to describe it in a scope of work

[FEASIBILITY]

This is a feasibility study to determine the capability of the Cardano blockchain to deliver a specific business use case.

The main deliverable will be the creation of a whitepaper that describes the gaps between technical capability and business need, and how these gaps will be closed. The whitepaper will describe how these actions will enable the crafting of technical scopes of work for future business solutions.

Project roadmap

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOE42SVo=/?invite_link_id=8962153475

After voting takes place and funding is successfully secured:

Understanding and articulating the business process use case (all times in the duration of activities, not work effort)

·     Meet business process owners – 2 days

·     Agree on requirements of blockchain – 2 days

·     Map business processes – 2 days

·     Agree on process map with process owner – 4 days

·     ID links to blockchain – 2 days

Investigate technical feasibility of blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case

·     Write a technical description of blockchain requirements – 7 days

·     Consultation with blockchain developers – 3 days

·     Second round of developer consultation – 3 days

·     Blockchain developer response to business process requirements – 2 days

Milestone – receive blockchain developer report

Writing of a whitepaper and development pathway to deliver the blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case

·     Map blockchain capability to business needs – 8 days

·     Consultation with blockchain developers – 4 days

·     Develop blueprint plan to close capability gaps – 2 days

·     Whitepaper authoring – 4 days

Overall, the project will have a duration of about 7 weeks dependent on the availability of participants.

The total cost of this proposal is US$30,100

The cost rates that we have estimated are:

Edify team – US$195/hr

Blockchain developers – US$130/hr

Understanding and articulating the business process use case – US$8,190

Edify team – 52 hours – US$8,190

Investigate the technical feasibility of blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case – US$7870

Edify team – 36 hours – US$7,020

Developers – 16 hours – US$2,080

Writing of a whitepaper and development pathway to deliver the blockchain technologies to deliver the business process use case – US$13,040

Edify team – 36 hours – US$12,030

Developers – 16 hours – US$1,160

Harry Hellyer

Company – Edify Business

Harry will ensure that the requirements of the companies providing the use case/s will be met, and will liaise with the executive leadership of each company to ensure that they have a clear expectation of the capability of the Cardano ecosystem.

NED, chairman, executive and business coach specialising in full value-based impact innovation programmes for enterprises and organisations.

Founding partner of 50th Generation – one of the UK's first Social Business Generational Accelerators – 2014-2018

Credited for supporting the development of the NHS's first Sustainable Development Vision and Strategy programme.

Coached Fellows on the Cambridge University, Programme for Sustainable Development,

Coached Fellows and Lectured for the Cambridge University, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning - Social Enterprise

VP and director of strategy, marketing strategy and business development for several global IT, media and telecoms companies.

Alan Casey

Company - Golgafrincham

Alan is a specialist in technology–business process integration. He will lead the investigation into the needs of the use cases, their interpretation in technical scopes of work and the drafting of the resultant whitepaper.

Manager of a sovereign national grid control centre during a period of technological and cultural change.

Founder and consultant in an organisational effectiveness measurement system deployed into a global advertising and marketing communications network.

Founder of a conversational AI company creating systems that evaluate and improve competence in key organisational skills.

Member of the Edify Community.

Fellow of the RSA.

Mark Constable

Company – Equip Business

25 years+ working in small business as a Leader, Founder, consultant and coach - Supporting impact-focused business leaders in building future-fit organisations

Proven track record of helping clients in building high value, high performing organisations focused equally on both wealth and wellbeing.

Relevant Experience: 

·     Development and delivery of high impact leadership programmes for fast-growth businesses.

·     Launched a business line providing specialised business development training to bid management and sales teams globally.  

Member of the Edify Community.

Jude Ugwuegbulam

Company – Mule Management

Jude helps Coaches & Consultants digitise their customer journey and turn strategic ideas into business assets. Resulting in more leads, more sales and automated support. Helps Professional Practices (HR, Legal and Dental) struggling to implement and manage their data protection/GDPR compliance to gain clarity, control and, accountability.

Jon Arnett

Company – Equip Business

Background in Operations and Project Management with startups, small businesses and social enterprises.

Founder of coaching and consulting business supporting small businesses and startups.

Experience in coaching, facilitation, workshopping and programme delivery (online and in-person)

Won multiple EU funded L&D contracts, delivering workshops on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and leadership to diverse stakeholders.

Member of the Edify Community.

Advisory Team

Paul Farmiloe – former client, business and blockchain experience, trainee stonemason, VP Formerly VP responsible for British Telecom's blockchain development and DLT programme.

Julius Joel – client, CEO and past group CEO of two of the largest AgriTech businesses in the UK.

Cardano blockchain developers

We will be partnering with recognised experts in the Cardano community on this project. We will collaboratively investigate the requirements of the business case and how they can be met by the Cardano blockchain capability.

[AUDITABILITY]

We will create and deploy and project plan overseen by a programme manager. The plan will have key milestones.

‘Done’ for this project will be the publication of the whitepaper as described above.

It will describe a pathway towards the development of innovative products and services based on the Cardano blockchain. 

The specific business use case will describe how the eventual product will enable a previously unattainable level of Soil Carbon Sequestration Auditing that will support greater value for consumers.

This is a new project.

SDG Rating

SDG goals:

Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

SDG subgoals:

4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

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