ReFi Generation
Ep. 7 $Earth with Utkarsh Patel: A Token for Ecosystem Regeneration
Today we explore a regenerative finance token, $Earth, with Utkarsh Patel , whose expertise in environmental sciences and economics helps us dissect the transformative potential of digital currencies.
Utkarsh was at COP28 in Dubai and shares his insights from the conference, one being that there was a resounding narrative throughout COP28 that carbon is the trojan horse that got people thinking about other important environmental markers that need to be addressed, such as water, soil, air, biodiversity, & social equity. Through this "Environmental Benefits Framework" we talk about the potential of blockchain technology to revolutionize environmental reporting, confronting the skepticism regarding its accessibility, particularly in less developed regions of the world.
We discuss the intricacies of designing systems that not only encourage, but also reward positive environmental impact. I hope this episode leaves you inspired that ReFi has the potential so solve global environmental challenges because it provides a sustainabile investment opportunity, where people don't have to choose between philanthropy, and investing in their future. $Earth makes doing the right thing an easy choice for all.
https://twitter.com/solarpunkdao
https://solarpunkdao.earth/
Today we explore a regenerative finance token, $Earth, with Utkarsh Patel , whose expertise in environmental sciences and economics helps us dissect the transformative potential of digital currencies.
Utkarsh was at COP28 in Dubai and shares his insights from the conference, one being that there was a resounding narrative throughout COP28 that carbon is the trojan horse that got people thinking about other important environmental markers that need to be addressed, such as water, soil, air, biodiversity, & social equity. Through this "Environmental Benefits Framework" we talk about the potential of blockchain technology to revolutionize environmental reporting, confronting the skepticism regarding its accessibility, particularly in less developed regions of the world.
We discuss the intricacies of designing systems that not only encourage, but also reward positive environmental impact. I hope this episode leaves you inspired that ReFi has the potential so solve global environmental challenges because it provides a sustainabile investment opportunity, where people don't have to choose between philanthropy, and investing in their future. $Earth makes doing the right thing an easy choice for all.
https://twitter.com/solarpunkdao
https://solarpunkdao.earth/
The starting premise for us was that if so many useless tokens are able to garner such market caps and get so much money going like, somewhere within us is the understanding that these ecosystems are also maybe a little important for us to continue doing what we are doing. So what if we can create a system wherein people can allocate funds to ecosystem conservation and see that as a store of value?
Speaker 2:Welcome to ReFi Generation, the podcast that talks to experts and leaders in the new frontier of regenerative finance to examine how blockchain technology is creating the next generation of environmental and humanitarian initiatives. I'm your host, Cash Uptin. In today's episode, we explore EarthCoin with Utkash Patel. In the age of climate emergency, we're nearly $4-7 trillion are needed annually to build the necessary infrastructure to get us to net zero by 2050. Earthcoin's participation in conscious capitalism is both a breath of fresh air and inspiring Live on Polygon. Earthcoin is a digital currency backed by real-world projects that are directly addressing the climate and ecological crisis and upholding solar-punk values. Earthcoin's vision is to create new stores of value where people start to reimagine what a healthy ecosystem is, while valuing water, air, biodiversity, etc. Utkash was also at COP28 in Dubai and gives us his takes. One I especially loved is how carbon is the Trojan horse that got people thinking about other environmental markers and necessary sustainability needs. I hope you enjoy this episode, Hi Utkash. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1:Good Hi Cash. Thank you for having me here and I'm excited about the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was really excited to learn about your project. So a few topics that we'll dive into today are kind of your background how you got into ReFi. Heard you just got back from COP. We'd love to just hear some feedback from that. Explain to our listeners how solar-punk DAO started and how the Earth token is evolving and explain what it's all about. And then just get a little bit of your feedback on the regenerative finance space and where you see it going and if you have any feedback on how ReFi can improve.
Speaker 1:That's a mighty loaded question over there. Let's take it piece by piece, I think yeah. So, to start off with, I have a background in environmental sciences and economics, so in a lot of ways, refi is what I studied for, but this was 10 years back. There was no such thing at that time Always wanted to do something in the climate finance space and the climate action space, but when I graduated it was more seen as a CSR activity and I think I would say probably things started shifting and the macro level was taking it seriously. Post 2015, 16, I think the Paris agreement really got some macro level momentum going, some consensus. Before that, it was even tough to go and ask people to take climate change very seriously in terms of something that needs to be done. So I was kind of observing from the sidelines and, yeah, I think, as things shifted in 2019 is when I decided that, yeah, I want to get into this full time because we can see that transition is going to happen and we are clearly not doing it at the pace that it's needed and yeah, basically it has everything that I want to do. So we keep on talking about AKGuy and in a lot of ways, all my interests converge with the space, so it was sort of a no brainer for me.
Speaker 1:Late 2019, I kind of got into, so I was observing crypto since 2018, but late 2019, I got into what was project financing for solar projects and EV projects. So that's how, like I started and I was trying to just go to retail investors and H&I's and get these projects funded, did a bunch of that for some time, realized there was a lot of shortcomings in terms of what the assets had to offer and what the investors were looking for. And all that while, like I was also feeling something was off in terms of, like you know, with EVs and solar, you're just focusing on half the problem. It doesn't address the entire landscape, and agriculture and conservation were the other two pillars of being able to like holistically address this. And with my experience with the project financing stint, I think what became clear to me is that there's a clear lack of incentives for people to do the right thing. So the conversations that I had were around the fact that, yeah, I think what you're doing is great and we're happy to put some money into this, but we cannot like allocate larger chunks because, even we want, we have to at least get how much the market gives. And let's say, if you take any of the indexes over a four or five year, 10 year horizon, they do end up giving double digit returns If you take the American index as the benchmark. So we have to, in some way or the other, try and beat that if you want a serious capital to flow in Plus. When you look at spaces like agriculture, it's tricky for somebody to get high returns when you're giving money to a land store and conservation is not a business model at all.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, the basic premise was that, yeah, we get paid to extract resources from the forest, but there's no like compensation for preserving or conserving the forest. So, with that understanding and like I mean my I've been fortunate enough to like be visiting national parks and sanctuaries at least twice a year for the last 15 years. My dad is big way into like wildlife, so have had that experience for a while and always thought that, like you know, this was or like ecosystems are the life of the planet. That's, that's what ensures that, like we continue having these environments in which it's habitable, in which we're thriving, we're able to do everything that we want to do, but somehow, as a society, we have failed to give it any value and, in fact, we have designed systems where you are incentivized to extract as much as you can from the forest and, you know, converted into wealth. So that, in some sense, was my starting point and why I was very strongly feeling that, like, maybe this intersection of, like you know, blockchain and crypto could have a potential solution. And I mean, yeah, I started looking at it seriously in 2020. And I mean, everything was hitting the fan at that time. Defi was just taking off, we printed so much money, so money was obviously flowing into the system and all sorts of crazy things were happening at that time.
Speaker 1:So the starting premise for us was that, you know, if, if so many useless tokens are able to garner such market caps and get so much money going, like, I mean, somewhere within us is the understanding that you know these ecosystems are also maybe a little important for us to. You know, continue doing what we're doing. So what if we can create a system wherein people can allocate funds to ecosystem conservation and see that as a store of value? So that was our starting point. Hence, the token also is called Earthcoin, because the idea was that, you know, let's see how we can get this going. Did that?
Speaker 1:I think the starting point was to see if we can create a stable coin that's backed by natural assets. Realize that there are a lot of fundamental design issues because the assets are not liquid and you need liquid assets to maintain stability. So we saw we moved on to like under collateralized, which is the FRAX model, found a bunch of flaws in it, so then we moved on to at that time like Olympus was taking off a lot, so kind of did a deep dive into like the mechanics over there and then finally we evolved to something that we have right now, which is like a range back, range bound currency design where it's got like a floor and like a soft ceiling so the price discovery can happen between it but cut to like two years into the space. As of now, the way it's designed is the protocol is perpetually selling Earthcoin at a specific price and when you mint Earthcoins you're paying dollars for those Earthcoins and then those dollars are allocated to the projects that we fund. So for now, our focus area is projects in clean energy, regenerative agriculture, clean transport, ecosystem conservation and solar punk spaces. So all these five sectors collectively like are responsible for roughly 70 to 80% of the greenhouse gas emissions and, at the same time, they cater to our core needs food, what food? Energy, transport, etc. Etc. So that's the design as of now, basically all money flows into.
Speaker 1:So the and just another side point here like the idea also is as of now, pretty much all reports state that like we need anywhere between four to seven trillion dollars a year, which is going to be that it's four to seven trillion dollars are needed every year for us to build the infrastructure that will ensure that, like you know, as a collective hold, we are net zero by 2050. So, you know, like it's not somebody's offset yeah, it's not somebody's offsetting and compensating, it's like everybody needs to get a net zero and for that we need this much every year to be invested into these infra projects. So and we are doing like less than 20, 25% of it. That's probably one of the primary reasons that nobody's able to achieve the Paris targets, also because simply not enough money is flowing into where it needs to, and if you look at that, there's no dirt of money as such, but it's the lack of incentives.
Speaker 1:It's according to me, I feel like it's a clear lack of incentives, because there's money to put into 10 other things, but money doesn't find its way here. So what can we do to, like you know, give people the incentives to do the right thing and thereby, like, with that starting point, we started out to see that, okay, if we want to make this happen, how do we design a system which is doing that? So, yeah, I mean, one thing led to another, led to another, and we kind of work pretty much ready, tentatively, like last December, but again in hindsight, maybe I was naive, but I realized that the challenges in the space are more to do with compliance than to do a product and I kind of like was not looking deep enough into that space. So once we were done with the product, I was just trying to figure out and then I realized that, yeah, okay, I mean, this is a far bigger challenge to address. How do we issue a token that does this? How do we ensure that, like it's still a currency, which jurisdictions can be played with, and how that whole system comes about? And, yeah, it's, it's fairly expensive.
Speaker 1:So we also took a little more time than what we would have because, again, operating on grants and stuff. So, yeah, it's been a. It's been quite the journey, I would say what it takes for people to I think three years is the time that they say that okay, if you've survived for three years, then you're good generally, but it's taken us two to three years to just get it out there. So it's a different game here, I guess. And yeah, but the thing is again, we have done everything with a very long term view. So that's why, like you know, not acted in haste, even if we could have, because we want to, like, set the right base. I love that.
Speaker 2:That's a bold journey right there and, in the age of meme tokens, it's really cool to see that you were building something that actually has, you know, impact on the earth. I especially love what you're saying about the lack of incentives and, like, historically, it's been philanthropy that is throwing money at the problems. But actually building a model that is creating stable yield to be reinvested into these projects, I think is really important. So that's why I was really excited to learn about what you guys are doing.
Speaker 1:So there are two parts to this, I feel like the thing is, what we're trying to do with our coin is to be able to revalue these assets that are taking us to the net zero future. So our understanding is that, like, you price them as the assets, but then all these assets are also creating like a variety of positive externalities, or ecosystem services are being generated, like basic things like the clean, the clean energy projects, you know, contributing to cleaner air, but then the regenerative agri projects, also contributing to soil health, to biodiversity, to water, to nutrient density, similar with, like, the conservation projects. And, yeah, so all these projects that we're funding are creating a variety of, like ecosystem benefits. So what we're trying to mean with this in some senses that you value the token for the assets that are backing it, for sure, but also for the benefits that it's generating. And if we're able to do that, if we're able to start, like, putting some price on these ecosystem services, then the projects are going to benefit from more capital flowing and the investors start getting benefited, because you start getting a little higher return than what the projects could generally give, because you're valuing them differently.
Speaker 1:And I believe that, like I think that's what really excites me about ReFi? Right, that it's a place where we can put across a concept like this and there is an audience that is willing to engage, like it's not that we have to, it's not that, like you know, we have to. It doesn't sound alien, it sounds right and I think we kind of take it for granted at times, because if you go and speak into any of these climate tech spaces and if you talk about, like, revaluing things, I'm met with a lot of like scary eyes, like oh, what do you mean? But yeah, in the space I feel like you know people have because, again, we're a lot more used to the Crypto shenanigans than that kind of in comparison to all of that, like this seems vanilla.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, well, especially because so many natural assets do have value like Proof of Elephant was one of my past guests and you know the elephant tourism industry is, you know, billions of dollars and so you know if that can actually be valued in a way that helps conservation, I think it's a really powerful position.
Speaker 1:I think we've taken a few steps in the wrong direction, but I think there is a collective understanding of where we are and it's really heartwarming to see like projects from all parts of the world, like trying to do like in their own niche, trying to, like you know, slowly and suddenly like shift the frameworks towards more of these, like you know, valuing natural assets and all of that entails from it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You're on the environmental benefits framework. Call right. Are you been diving into that?
Speaker 1:A bit. Yes, I think the Gidcoin radio that we did the last season. Monty shared quite a bit and because I am, I was luckily the steward when Monty was hosting, so I was there for all the conversations and I picked their brains quite a bit. But it mostly seems like we might be incorporating the framework to be able to see, or at least view, the projects through the EBF lens to see what kind of impact is coming out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think it's powerful to think about other assets than just carbon having a value in this era of a climate emergency, and what is the price of clean air, what is the value of healthy soils and biodiversity. I actually just interviewed Douglas Gaten was just on the podcast, so his episode will launch in a week or so and late December and we had a really interesting conversation, because he isn't historically in the blockchain space and there is a lot of overlap between environmental benefits framework and regenerative finance. But he did have some interesting feedback and some not criticisms, but some maybe shortcomings of blockchain and refi. And I'm wondering have you felt any pushback from local communities or anyone who is skeptical about the inclusivity of blockchain or the ability for maybe people in the global south to be able to access this technology equally?
Speaker 1:I think I would want to know more in terms of where his pushback was coming from, to get a little more of a context on this. But at least I mean at the current stage, I don't think we are prepared as an industry to offer these solutions at the ground level. I mean, there's a lot more work that needs to be done before they are able to automatically start using all these tools. Right now is going to be a bunch of hand holding, and the way I look at these things is if, at the end of the day, the person in the project on the ground is getting benefited from any which way, whether it's a better loan or if it's some reward sprinkled on top for whatever they are doing.
Speaker 1:I have seen a lot of proactive engagement because there has been a sense of despair amongst these impact projects that nobody really like.
Speaker 1:They have to really shout to be able to communicate the impact that they are making, and then they're always also perpetually fundraising for their projects.
Speaker 1:So, at least from my experience, the response has been that like yeah, if you can take us through the process, we're happy to engage, but it's not something that we can just leave it up to them for them to like, figure it out and make things happen, because I know for a fact that when I started learning most of what I did for granted today, it took me a while Setting up the basic stuff right Setting up wallets, interacting with dApps and doing this, doing that, getting crypto into your wallet in the first place, when we live in a country where, like, transfers from a central exchange to your wallet are very looked at very officially. So it's a task. It's a task, but I feel like there is going to be that learning curve. My goal is that, like, if there is some genuine utility and advantage that's been created, at the end it's worth undertaking the exercise. So, yeah, the focus should be in terms of how they are benefiting from it, and then I feel like the other things can take care of itself.
Speaker 2:Right yeah. And the ecological benefits framework helps to categorize you know six areas of impact that can be. You know, increasing positivity externalities and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So just on that bit, I'm still a little skeptical that it goes mainstream, because I know there's so much complexity in being able to gauge carbon sequestration that extrapolating that to six other parameters is going to be tricky. It's going to be tricky but I feel like there will come on time when we can just offer a tool set to somebody which is doing a project and maybe they can do some internal reporting that can be corroborated by a bunch of IoT devices and satellite. And then the third party verification is like a small percentage of the final verification. Right now everything is third party and with that it becomes prohibitively expensive for like the actual projects that need this funding. So I'm more seriously hoping this whole attention and focus on MRV we're able to like drive down the cost of impact reporting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. That's been a recurring theme that I've heard from a lot of folks is that the measure reporting and verification is still where the bottleneck happens, where there's still a lot of challenges. One interesting point that Douglas had to say was the difference between decentralized MRV and indigenous MRV, and he made this interesting point about the quantitative framework that we're all living in with the how many tons of carbon versus the qualitative, which is a little less like numbers and data and a little bit more of intrinsic knowledge that indigenous stewards have had for thousands of years as they work with the land. And Douglas sees a big shift and also that indigenous MRV, that qualitative knowledge, coming a lot more to the forefront of the conversation.
Speaker 1:I think EVF mostly is qualitative right now, because that's the only way you can start gauging things like soil, air, water, biodiversity, equity. It's hard to be able to quantify these things right now. I'm sure we will find values for it, but that's the way I talk about it right now. Is I say I plus DMRV, because it's going to be a combination. We have to see every toolset has its limitations and that's where another toolset comes in, so there can be a bunch of indigenous reporting.
Speaker 1:But again, at some point we will start asking the question as to how is it authentic data? How is it verified? Who's verified it? How do we believe it at scale? So then we would need these juxtapositions third party, some is digital, some is self-reporting, and then we create a more resilient system over time, because I mean there's been too many learnings in the carbon credit market space also that every so often we come up with these articles that we read that like, oh, so many were junk and so many were trash and so many were worthless, and it's endless. So that's why I think a system where a combination of these tools, so that it's not prohibitively expensive and it can scale to where it's needed.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, and I think in 2024, we'll see a lot of how that conversation shapes the EBF. And what are the markers for water, what are the markers for air? And then there will be, I think, more sets of data points that people would want to pull on for each of those categories. But you're right, it is still very much evolving and again, though, that is something that's super exciting for me I also went to school for political economy with the focus on environmental sustainability, and when you said in the beginning like you were kind of in the refi space without even knowing it, like you're right, it is the mix of environmentalism and economics that can create this regenerative system, if done correctly. So I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:I'm insanely grateful for this space. Contamining myself doing anything else now, so yeah.
Speaker 2:It's given me a lot of inspiration and hope when in the past, without before refi, it did seem very less possible, like you said, there was always like endless fundraising, endless shouting about your project, and now it seems like there's making it market driven in a way, like you said, competing with comparable US stock exchanges, and that has a lot of impact, because then people can invest and have a positive impact instead of just philanthropy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's that's where we so the way we can do this is the new unit of value, right, they were trying to design with earth.
Speaker 1:That new unit is when the community starts valuing things like water, air, soil, biodiversity, nutrients, pollination, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:And if you're able to start doing that, like things will start flowing quite, quite seamlessly because of the way things are designed and how money functions.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's also I feel like we tend to think that markets are really free and like it's an open battery ground, but we kind of underestimate the roles that all of these high end lobbying with the government policies and subsidies and, like you know, there are too many factors at play and what we understand as free market.
Speaker 1:So I don't think the market is in any way being able to price the damages that will be a consequence of climate change, and it's in no way is being able to even price the benefits of being able to transition early. And still, the conversation is focused towards climate crisis, but to me, the climate crisis is just the tip of the iceberg of the larger environmental crisis, and I think I mean from this cop. I was quite glad that the conversation does seem to be shifting gradually. There is a lot of focus on biodiversity, on soil, on air quality, on water resources and stuff like that. So it's a gradual shift and, like I always see carbon as like this Trojan horse you know to like, if the mainstream is sensitized on carbon, then, like the mainstream will also start taking all of these other issues a lot more seriously.
Speaker 2:I like that. Yeah, the carbon tunnel vision is necessary to get away from, but it's almost like the introduction point for a lot of people to then think about the other areas that need to be improved upon as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, to be honest, I've seen that happen. Quite naturally, like you know, as you get concerned about carbon, it takes you to the root cause of the problem. And then you look at all of that and then you see, oh my God, like, oh, we are in a mess on all fronts. And then like, yeah, things start getting coming into perspective one way or the other.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Now, that's a really interesting way to put it. Yeah, everything is impacted and has a has an interrelation between each other. So, yeah, you were just in Dubai. What are? Do you have a few other takeaways for COP?
Speaker 1:A bunch. I actually put up a thread on this. So I think my main takeaway was that there were over 200,000 people that had attended COP and everybody that was there was, in one way or the other, doing something to do with climate action, like, whether it's advocacy, or whether it's policy, or whether it's finance, whether it's tech, whether it's investing, whether it's governments like you know all. First, it's like it's become like the nefactor climate carnival, because you have, like social sector, private sector, governments everybody, like you know everybody coming down on the same table to discuss. To me, I was just a beyond all the pessimism, just glad that there were so many people looking into this problem and everybody was quite serious about the depth of the problem. I also do understand that it's a fairly complicated task to expect 200 countries to coordinate on common goals. I mean, we have a tough time getting consensus in a society or in a doubt, right it's when you put 200 countries on that page. Every country is in a different space in the journey regards to development. They have different strengths, weaknesses and keeping all of that in mind, you have to take a collective step forward. So I understand that is a very daunting challenge but at the same time, like I think it's probably wrong to expect miracles from there. I think what happens is that the narrative gets set on a very high level, that, okay, we understand this is the problem. We have consensus on the problem, these are the steps that we are in a position to take. They had a major agreement on phasing out fossil fuels. But I mean, just let's look at the Paris agreement, right, like, everybody signed it, but we have less than three or four countries that are on track with their goals Because there is nobody to enforce any of this. It's a voluntarily targeted, these people said, and then like we can't do much beyond a point.
Speaker 1:But for me, the silver lining is that there is a clear consensus on what needs to be done, and I think the mantle will lie on the private sector, to say the least, so the non state actors, to be able to do the heavy lifting also on climate action. Because if the clear understanding is that of all money spent, like 30% is government money but close to 70% is non state money, so you cannot like expect miracles from the 30%, everybody has to pitch in. So on that front, I think there is a lot of momentum, I would say for sure, beyond the official conversations, there are so many slight discussions happening that it's difficult to keep a track of, but there is a lot of cross-pollination happening, and I also observed that there is some serious money waiting on the sidelines to see how they can invest in the right projects. There is a dirt of viable, investable, impact based projects for this. There is also there is clear consensus that everybody is falling short on climate finance and they all do want more, I think, better reporting, let's say what we're talking about. They all want, like, better reporting for the project so that they can allocate capital allocation decisions accordingly.
Speaker 1:But and yeah, I mean this is, I think, what I'd like to end with in this is don't quote me on this but a lot of sidebar conversations around you know, coming to a realization that maybe the depth of the problem is so big and what needs to happen is so much that maybe, and just maybe, the current financial system might not be Equipped to handle something like this. And yeah, so you know it's, it's crazy. It's crazy, I mean. And the thing is, I think over 99% of the people over there don't know of refund.
Speaker 1:I think less than a percent or two, like you know, has heard of it or know somebody doing something in the space and there were a bunch of events that had done and block chain and the climate had done this time. So it kind of is raising the awareness. But, yeah, a lot of them. If you speak to them after they get off the stage and if you question a bit, they would either end up saying that yeah, we know we're not doing enough, but we need to because the problem is so huge, and if not, we have to do something else. And maybe because of the positions that those people are in, they probably cannot be very candid in their conversations but because of representing either UN or countries and stuff like that. But there is conversation that we might need to have another system, because we are trying to work in this system, but the system, the way it's designed, maybe not the most conducive to solving the crisis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really powerful take. I mean, I just think about what you said earlier the lobbying arm is making a lot of decisions that the everyday people don't really have control over, and rethinking how we can all have impact. I do like what you said, though about 70% of money is non-government, and so there is a lot out there that can be allocated towards this $4-7 trillion needed each year to be invested into climate tech.
Speaker 1:I mean the thing is, it's not very hard to imagine, when you look at it in a way, that all sectors that are catering to our core needs need to transition 100%. So the way our food is produced needs to shift fully, our energy production systems need to change fully. Our transport needs to shift fully. The way we construct buildings also needs to shift fully. And I think this is it touches upon everything that we see around us pretty much is the base on which modern societies are big. So we are talking about doing this shift in the next 30 years, what has probably taken 300 years to become like this. So I don't think the way we, when we talk about earth, coin the reason that we, the way we picture it is. We say that it's probably the most massive transformation that humanity has ever undertaken, because there have never been like 8-9 billion people living on this planet, there has never been so much infrastructure that has been built to cater to our needs, and now we have realized that, okay, all of that is great, but we are really screwing it up on all of these fronts. So most of that needs to like, evolve, and it's not that we can do it in 100 years. We have a very clear timeline, that we need to do it within this time, that otherwise it gets way worse, and yeah. So I think it's all hands on deck kind of situation.
Speaker 1:And again, just going back to COP, I think everybody who is there realizes this. If you look at all the big MNCs, the big banks, the development institutions, the UN bodies, all the social sector, they all realize that the problem is so big that everybody needs to collaborate a lot more closely. But and I think this is where everyone gets stuck is that if you are inhabiting this capitalist system and you are bound by those rules and by that logic, it's really tough to genuinely collaborate on solving it Because of the way incentives are designed right, like everybody needs and everybody, at the end of the day, is answerable to those incentives to, like you know, making the system work. So, despite strong will, like, I think translating into action has a lot of friction. So I think I mean, yeah, I'm probably could not be any more excited about what we're, what we're doing as a collective wind refire.
Speaker 1:I do think that we're still at a very nascent stage and space, but we've been, I've been having some conversations to see if at least the active projects in the space can take up a couple of booths at the next COP, so we're able to present the projects as very credible solutions to. You know what is the discussion they want more transparency in the way capital is allocated. They want transparency on how the impact is reported. They want incentives to, like you know, for climate finance. They want to, like you know, value things like all the ecological benefits and stuff like that, and a lot of projects in the space doing very targeted stuff. So we need to bridge that awareness gap and because those are the people that do have a lot of sway and resources in the world and if you're able to like flip the right set of people, I think the momentum can get quite, yeah, exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's make refi a meme at the next cop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it is starting. I mean, see, I think they were like, I would say, oddly, 80 hundred people which were active from refi over there, and I know for a fact that everybody was just going and trying to like incept refi. Like I must have met, like, I think, at least had conversations with like 80 to 100 people, like proper conversations, that everybody now at least, even if they don't understand, they've heard of the name, so that tomorrow somebody meets you and you say, and then somebody else meets and they say, like it starts, you know, there's some noise being created in their heads and then at some point they would be curious enough to go look into it deeper.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. No, that's good to know, it's on people's tongues. Well, just to finish up, I just want to give some kudos and just say that I really love that, the holistic projects that the earth coin is backing. So, from coconut farms that are centropic to solar project with Helios, love what Helios is doing, the eco village and the traditional dream factory, electric charging and electric two wheelers, and so, you know, solar mixed with sustainable agriculture. I just, I love that. You guys, you are addressing, you know, all of the needs of the world, so I think that's that's really cool to see and definitely want to. You know, stay along for the journey as as earth coin takes off more.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Cash for those kind words, and I think that's the idea Right. We wanted to build something where, if, if the ones who are not like me, deep in the refi space but they still want to like, take action and they want to do the right thing All they can or they need to do is just go and buy one asset, thank you, you buy one asset and you don't have to think about it, and you know that things are getting funneled where they need to get funneled, because I understand that, like, we have made it our life right now, but I understand that it cannot be the top priority for a lot of people out there, but they still do want to do the right thing. It's not that they don't agree, it's just that they don't have the bandwidth to, and in that case, like is this is the option that we want to present, that Like, yeah, I mean, just put some money and see what happens.
Speaker 2:Love it yeah, making doing the right thing easy. Yeah, basically, yeah, yeah, ukesh, thanks so much for coming on to know.
Speaker 1:This has been a really incredible conversation, having me cash, it was great.
Speaker 2:Thanks to Matthew Patrick Donner for the Refi generation production, including the music, mixing and editing. As a reminder, none of this is financial advice, and feedback is the breakfast of champions. Please subscribe to our show and send your thoughts, critiques and ideas for future content. Be well, take care of each other and do something good today.