The ACTS (Agroforestry Carbon Token System) project has successfully completed its first milestone. In the frame of the Innosuisse grant (Innovationsprojekt / Projekt Nr. 104.664.1 IP-EE), the project participants are collaboratively working on developing a blockchain-based agroforestry system for carbon credits. Alongside First Climate as industry partner, three institutes from the ZHAW are involved in the research, which is already a unique arrangement for similar research projects. The goal of the project is to create an innovative product that encompasses a novel solution in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), along with the associated measurement techniques, modelling procedures and a technological innovation.
First Climate has initiated the development of a product that would support the financing of agroforestry systems in European countries through carbon credits. Given that both the origin and type of the credits are new to the VCM, unique methodological procedures are required in the areas of measurement and modelling, a task undertaken by Institute of Natural Resource Sciences of the ZHAW School of Life Sciences and Facility Management.
The other novelty of the designed product is its blockchain-based technological foundation, which provides a transparent means of tracking the credit’s journey from the individual farmer to the carbon markets. The blockchain-based implementation is carried out by the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Physics of the ZHAW School of Engineering, while the token design, governance planning of the product, and project management tasks are handled by Institute for Organizational Viability of the ZHAW School of Management and Law.
In the first phase of the project, state-of-the-art solutions were mapped out, with a special focus on the procedures for biomass carbon quantification modelling in the Measurement, Reporting, and Verification area, as well as examining the functions of tokens and interpreting their role in the VCM supply chain. Based on the examination of market conditions, the product life cycle was designed, and the technical implementation of the first version has started. For further information do not hesitate to reach out to the project team.