5. Basics
5.1. Regen Registry Description
Regen Registry is a comprehensive tool, platform and process designed to establish community standards and frameworks for quantifying, monitoring, and trading ecological credits and managing other types of ecological claims. Central to its operation is the active engagement of the community.
Regen Registry offers processes and tools for setting standards for methodology and credit class development and approval, establishing and upholding frameworks for decision-making processes and appeals, and overseeing the use of the Regen Registry System by stakeholders using Credit Classes registered under the Regen Registry Program.
Designed with modularity in mind, the Regen Registry promotes shared decision-making among stakeholders. These stakeholders have the ability to propose and vote on pivotal decisions, form committees to supervise specific facets of the registry process, and collaboratively address disputes or challenges. At present, the stewardship of the Regen Registry is undertaken by RND PBC.
Registry System - technical infrastructure responsible for tracking information and claims related to ecological state. This system encompasses specific business logic, computer code, and programs that facilitate certain functions associated with the Regen Registry. While the Regen Registry sets the standards and frameworks, the Registry System provides the technical means to implement these functions. Built atop the Regen Ledger, the Registry System’s capabilities include, but are not limited to, registering projects, monitoring the issuance, ownership, transfer, and retirement (or cancellation) of ecological credits, anchoring and signing data, and transparently tracking decision-making practices.
Marketing Platform - showcases the unique story of each project, highlighting the land stewards, the impact on the land and environment; provides Buyers and policy makers with impact analytics on a portfolio (regional, national, and global) of key ecological indicators.
5.2. Regen Registry Objectives
Regen Registry’s objectives are to:
Encourage nature-based solutions. For example, solutions based on regenerative agriculture, conservation, and best management practices, as a strategy to mitigate (by removing/reducing GHG emissions) and/or adapt to climate change.
Provide guidance for, and promote scientifically rigorous methodologies and credit classes to foster high quality ecological assets.
Create an open-source infrastructure that allows cost-effective and rigorous MRV implementation, issues and tracks credits while avoiding double counting, and provides payments, billing, and marketing functionality.
Support best practices in project-level GHG accounting and ecosystem services.
Commercialize innovative types of credits bundled with valuable co-benefits and ecosystem services.
Provide an environment to develop new types of ecological assets that will inform voluntary and regulated markets.
Incorporate cutting-edge technologies, such as IoT sensors, satellite remote sensing, and digital signatures in the use of project monitoring and verification.
Enhance public confidence in market-based action for GHG removal and ecosystems' regeneration.
Support interoperability between climate markets emerging from the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement and global NDC commitments.
5.3. Scope
5.3.1. Geography
Regen Registry accepts projects from locations worldwide, provided they conform to an approved Credit Class and Methodology.
5.3.2. Project Activities
Regen Registry was developed to be a catalyst for ecosystem regeneration around the globe using blockchain, decentralized finance, and other Web 3.0 tools. To accomplish this, we are developing innovative ways to financially support people working to improve and maintain ecosystem health through the use of nature-based solutions (NbS). We follow a definition of NbS that is similar to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) definition but we replace "sustainably" with “regeneratively” to define NbS as:
“actions to protect, [regeneratively] manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits”.
This definition includes, but is not limited to, projects reducing negative direct impacts that humans have on ecosystem function, improving climate adaptation, and reducing global warming. Examples of projects that we support will be reflected in our growing list of methodologies and projects.
Regen Registry accepts any projects using nature-based solutions as defined above.
5.3.3. Data Submission and Record Keeping
Regen Registry provides a Registry System which can be used to track information and claims made on ecological state, which may comprise of specific business logic, computer code and programs that execute some of the functions of the Regen Registry. The Regen Registry’s Registry System is built on Regen Ledger, and supports (but not limited to) registering projects, tracking the issuance, ownership, transfer, and retirement (or Cancelation) of ecological credits, data anchoring and signing, and transparent tracking decision making practices.
5.4. Guiding Principles
5.4.1. Accuracy
The Project Proponent shall reduce, as far as is practical, uncertainties related to the quantification of GHG removals and/or any other applicable ecological indicator, such as species habitat, tree coverage, etc.
Methodologies submitted for Regen Registry approval shall include methods for estimating the uncertainty for each indicator.
The use of models, such as biogeochemical models, must include an estimate of structural uncertainty related to the inadequacy of the model, model bias, and model discrepancy. Monitors shall quantify these using the best available science, Monte Carlo analyses, uncertainty estimates from peer reviewed literature, and/or consulting model experts who have either developed or worked directly with the model in an academic setting.
5.4.2. Comparability
Methodologies approved on Regen Registry shall rely on comparable peer-reviewed studies as best as possible.
5.4.3. Transparency
Regen Registry is built to provide stakeholders, including Project Proponents, Buyers, scientists, and market experts, with a high level of transparency. We achieve this by:
Credit Classes and Methodologies are publicly available and receive public comment. We also encourage engaging a broad set of subject matter experts during the design process.
All pertinent project data is publicly available, including the Project Plan, monitoring reports, credit issuance certification, and verification reports.
Regen Ledger will provide an immutable record and digital audit trail of monitoring and verification outcomes, and credit issuance and sales.
See also the GHG Accounting and Policies section.
5.4.4. Collaboration
Regen Registry believes deeply in collaboration. We are convening a broad set of independent parties to participate in:
Methodology development and Credit Class design - scientists, economists and subject matter experts are invited to create new, cutting-edge ecological assets, to provide feedback, and to govern the library of methodologies and credit classes.
Monitoring and verification - remote sensing companies, experts, IoT providers, surveying tools, etc. are invited to provide their monitoring services to streamline the costs of MRV while maintaining scientific rigor.
Regen Registry System and Regen Ledger development - software developers who are eager to mitigate climate change are welcome to contribute to these open source projects.
5.4.5. Practicality
Regen Registry aims to balance the time and cost required by Project Proponents to collect data for monitoring, verification and reporting and the need for assurances from credit Buyers. To that end, Regen Registry encourages an adaptive approach to methodology development that will provide different levels of assurances to cater to different needs of credit Buyers.
5.4.6. Security
RND will conduct security audits of major releases of its software, including Regen Ledger and Registry System, to ensure the data integrity and fidelity of credit ownership and the underlying MRV data.
5.4.7. Open Source and Open Data
Following the collaboration principle above, RND is a strong proponent of open-source software and open data. We firmly believe that in order to achieve the best results, provide transparency, ensure fair governance, and invite collaboration from multiple stakeholders, we need to develop open source software and share our research data openly. Our software code repositories are available on GitHub[5].
5.4.8. User-Centric Design
Relative to their potential, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) carbon credits have seen limited adoption in regulatory and voluntary markets. Historically, the supply of these credits has been limited because credit design has not incorporated enough feedback from land stewards, resulting in credit requirements that were complicated, expensive and/or time consuming. Regen Registry follows a user centric design of credit classes and methodologies with input not only from buyers but also land stewards and project developers.
Last updated