February 2023

It’s been quite a powerful start to 2023 for Vlinder! In the first two months of the year, we’ve launched the first public sale of forward tokens, visited our mangrove restoration project in Kenya, been nominated for a prize launched by the Duke of Cambridge – and that’s not even half of the story.

Read our newsletter to learn more about opportunities for climate change projects and Vlinder’s contribution to them.

Forward carbon tokens are now available for purchase on Senken — powered by Vlinder

Vlinder offers an initial batch of 500 tokenized forward #bluecarbon credits on the Senken marketplace. Forward carbon credits enable people and organizations to provide early-stage funding for carbon removal projects and support the transition to a low-carbon economy.?

How it works

Vlinder tokenizes the project’s to-be-issued #carboncredits. Those tokens are then sold on the Senken marketplace. The money gained from sales is transferred to the project’s account and is used for planting mangroves and maintaining the project’s infrastructure.

People that purchase forward carbon tokens can hold them until the project gets validated by Verra and the future carbon credits turn into spot carbon credits. After that, the price of the carbon credits is likely to rise. Spot carbon credits can be sold to companies that offset their carbon footprint, or they can be used for self-offset.

The project

The pilot tokens on Senken represent future carbon credits of the Papariko mangrove project developed by Vlinder. This? Verra-certified restoration effort aims to revitalize 1500 hectares of severely degraded mangroves in Kenya, with a total emission removal capacity of 726,761 tons of CO2.

To purchase the Papariko future carbon credits, visit the Senken marketplace.?

You can read our blog post or listen to the Twitter Space with Vlinder co-founder Sergey Ivliev, Adrian Wons from Senken and Charlie Pool from Toucan to learn more.?

Our project in Kenya is being validated

At the same time, the Vlinder team went to Kwale to get our Papariko project validated for #Verra, a leading voluntary carbon certification standard.?

The auditors from KBS Certification Services, an independent certification body accredited by Verra, visited the project site to check how the actual situation corresponds to the project documentation submitted to the standard and whether the project fits the Verra #mangrove reforestation framework.

A blog series about Kenya — just like Netflix, but in texts

Since we get a lot of questions about the Verra certification processes, we’ve decided to launch a series of blog posts and show how it works using our development site in #Kenya as an example. The first posts explain what mangrove reforestation looks like and how to get the right partners on the ground — with real-life photos of tiny mangroves, mature forests and local communities at work.

By the way, Papariko has its own office in Kwale. In the picture above, you can see our auditor Shilpa Swarnim from KBS Certification Services and our teammates Isabella Masinde, Camilla Werl and Robin Bartmann near the office.

We are nominated for one of the most prestigious environment awards

Vlinder is proud to be nominated for The Earthshot Prize by PDIE Group, one of the top Earthshot Prize nominators.

Launched by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and The Royal Foundation in 2020, the Earthshot Prize is the most prestigious global environment prize in history.?It is designed to incentivize change and help repair our planet over the next ten years. The prize has five categories in which finalists will be chosen: Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World, and Fix Our Climate.

We would like to thank PDIE Group for their trust in Vlinder!

Vlinder is chosen for the Blue Carbon Accelerator

Out of 40 semi-finalists from all over the world, 12 finalists joined the program. Yes, we’ve made it through!

The Blue Carbon Accelerator Programme is an 8-week program designed to support and develop the growth of blue carbon solutions from across the world. It is powered by Bright Tide in collaboration with EY, The Crown Estate and Hogan Lovells.

Wish us good luck to get and bring the most value here!

Vlinder is in Gitcoin’s Climate Solutions Grant Round?

Vlinder was selected by Gitcoin for the Climate Solutions Grant Round / Oceans and Forest bundle.?

Gitcoin is the major platform for open-source web 3 project development and funding. Gitcoin grants match individual donations the project gets on their platform, with the grant money. The matching is done according to the principle of the so-called quadratic funding: the more individual donors, the more matched funds the project receives.

Now the donation period is over, we are waiting for the funds to be matched with the Gitcoin grant funds. We’ll let you know about the updates in our next newsletter.

Vlinder is featured in the Climate One podcast on blue carbon

Vlinder co-founder Dr. Irina Fedorenko-Aula and Isabella Masinde representing Vlinder in Kenya were guests on the Climate One podcast episode. The ladies spoke about the blue carbon and mangrove restoration.?

It was an honor for us to share the floor with Ralph Chami, Assistant Director at the International Monetary Fund, and Emily Pidgeon, Vice President of Ocean Science and Innovation at Conservation International.

Irina Fedorenko-Aula: “Mangrove restoration is not just about trees - it’s about protecting people from very violent, extreme weather events. For people who live there, having a healthy mangrove forest in front of the villages is literally a question of life and death. Mangroves do offer multiple benefits for people, for land, for oceans, for carbon sequestration. And they bring very attractive financial returns to investors".

Isabella Masinde: "I hope that this conversation will reach as many people as possible. We need to support the local community, and we welcome you to Kenya. Come and work with us. Come, we plant in the next rainy season".

Listen to the full podcast here.

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Thank you for staying in touch with Vlinder! We’ll appreciate your support and comments — let us know if the newsletter was insightful.

Team Vlinder