- Edited
This RFC is in response to the RFC posted by KlimaDAO on September 7th, 2022: Carbon Project
Development Initiative
Project Overview
Introduction to the GRO Initiative and its GRO Foundation
“GRO” is a social-impact organization dedicated to planting 1 billion trees and helping to lift millions of
individuals and families out of poverty by 2030 using climate finance.
The GRO mission is to fund “un-fundable” social impact projects using climate finance and achieve the
vision of enabling vulnerable communities, women, and youth to take control of their own future.
GRO implements nature-based climate finance projects in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and
advises governments and NGOs on policy and methodologies to conceptualise, deliver and manage
climate finance solutions centered on nature-based carbon offset programs that are ISO14064-2 certified.
In a nutshell: Plant trees and create sustainable livelihood projects by connecting grassroots communities
to the global carbon market.
The goal is to re-establish natural biodiversity by restoring forest reserves, pocket forests and riverlands.
The core concept of the GRO methodology is to work with communities at a grassroots level and
incentivise them to plant the trees and act as stewards for the entire project duration.
We achieve this by funding water and food security projects, rural electrification as well as schools,
orphanages and skill centers for education and training. Finally, communities participate in profits from
carbon sales and receive microfinance for livelihood projects.
The Initiative and Foundation is registered in Lichtenstein and regulated by the financial conduct authority
to meet EU standards assured by its Trustee, the Euro Treuhand AG.
PDD link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IrjoMnHLFcqFePmYWSw4M3RsnBOCAVqr/view?usp=share_link
Project Overview Text
The GRO Initiative is listing three separate Project Design Documents in East Africa with a target of 500
million trees, split evenly between Uganda and Kenya, and 100 million mangroves in Kenya to be planted
by 2030.
We use the CDM-methodology AR-ACM0003: Afforestation and reforestation of lands except wetlands --
- Version 2.0. For better transparency, we implemented a deviation to use census-based accounting
exclusively instead of area-based assessment.
Simply put, we exclusively account for trees we planted ourselves i.e. 100% reforestation. Project
monitoring and reporting follows the ISO-14064 standard for Carbon Certificates to ensure project
integrity and further transparency.
Validation and verification is conducted by Carbon Check (https://www.carboncheck.co.in/), who have been working in carbon certification since 2011 and
are accredited by CDM, Verra, Gold Standard, ICR and other leading registries.
As we are focused on the European compliance market and are in touch with stock listed organizations,
who demand ISO-certifications, we chose to list our project on the International Carbon Registry, ICR,
which is an EU government approved registry that has embraced the ISO-14064 standard.
Our projects are designed to reestablish forest cover with natural biodiversity on deforested public and
institutional land with an assurance of permanence beyond the 45-year monitoring lifecycle.
Carbon sequestration models based on indigenous trees and their growth patterns conservatively
estimate a carbon sequestration of 400+ million tons per the PDD over a 45-year period.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION SUMMARY
Our methodology is centered on community stewardship, meaning that local community’s plant and
maintain trees for the long-term, while being trained and supervised by GRO staff and external
reforestation experts.
Through active stakeholder engagement, GRO has secured the endorsement by the Office of the Prime
Minister and is actively working with the ministry for water and the environment, the inter-religious
council of Uganda, UN Women, several kingdoms and Chiefdoms, district councils and community-based
organisations.
As part of our methodology, GRO does not become the landowner, but instead receives the right to plant
trees on public or institutional land from strategic partners as well as the right to utilise carbon certificates
under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
The strategic partners also support the project by mobilising communities for reforestation as well as
identify and distribute funds for social impact.
Participating stakeholders receive a share of net proceeds from carbon certificate sales, which is
distributed in three phases aimed at creating and maintaining permanent forest cover to increase
biodiversity and wildlife conservation.
Reforestation
• Secure and map deforested land owned by public or institutional partner
• Assign GRO Project Manager to planting area
• Connect with district forester of the national forest service
• Identify and engage with local community-based organizations and local tree planters
• Identify, appoint, and train Local Community Project Stewards
• Establish planting schedule and social impact schedule
• Establish GRO tree nursery and connect with local tree nurseries for scale
• Execute planting, monitoring and reporting plan
• Execute social impact plan
Social Impact
• Project begins
Upfront support of water, food and impact infrastructure projects
• Planting phase
Support of skills training, orphan, youth, women and small hold farmer programs with a focus on
production, services and entrepreneurial skills
• Monitoring phase
Provision of discretionary share and unsecured microfinance for livelihood projects
Project Status - Concept pilot in final stages
• Endorsement by Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry for Water end the Environment, National
Forest Service
• Training support by UN Women and Makarere University
• Land secured for 250 million trees provided by Inter-Religious Council and Kings Council of Uganda
• On target to plant 1 million trees as part of key staff training in 2023
• Supporting over 600 children, Xmas campaign with impact on 10.000 children in the works
Project Media
https://grofoundation.io/media/
Project Certifications
Project in final audit stage
https://www.carbonregistry.com
https://carboncheck.co.in/
dMRV components
We use an in-house GIS mapping team and are advised by several external experts including Dr Sudha,
Board Advisor to Gold Standard and Makarere University.
We access several bespoke databases for GIS mapping information to create baseline data. For monitoring
we additionally deploy the tree mapping app by plant for the planet, the custodian of the UN-Environment
global reforestation program.
We record plantation site boundaries, the number of trees, the species of trees, growth and fatality rates,
participating stakeholders, participating volunteers, responsible local facility stewards, assigned project
managers, assigned expert advisors, monitoring and reporting staff.
Find App information here: https://www.plant-for-the-planet.org/treemapper/
Project Proponents
GRO Initiative and Foundation
www.grofoundation.io
Inter-Religious Council of Uganda
https://www.ircu.or.ug/
https://daparrot.com/youth-sdgs-inter-religious-council-to-plant-250-million-trees/
Youth Coalition in Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda
https://sdgs.opm.go.ug/youth-coalition-for-sdgs/
UN Women
https://africa.unwomen.org/en/where-we-are/eastern-and-southern-africa/uganda
Plant for the Planet
https://www.plant-for-the-planet.org/trillion-trees/
Issuance Outlook
Assuming $250,000 initial investment, the GRO Initiative would offer ex-ante Carbon Offset Certificates
via the International Carbon Registry. Transfer of all Carbon Certificates would occur within 60 days of
payment, subject to final audit approval. Ideally, we would like to agree on ex-post maturity to occur over
a period of 5 years.
Delivery Failure protection:
If at the Delivery Date, defined in the table below, the amount of ISO-14064-2 Carbon Certificates (“VERs”)
is less than the amount of Contracted VERs, then a delivery failure has occurred (“Delivery Failure”). In
this situation, the Parties have that the Seller may either:
i) replace such undelivered Contracted VERs (“Affected Contracted VERs”) from the same project at
the Seller’s sole discretion or:
from a comparable project, in which the Seller shall provide the Buyer within sixty (60) Business Days after
the original Delivery Date with information regarding the alternative credits (“Replacement Units”)
including as to:
b) project name/ID;
c) location; and
d) project type.
It is the mutual intent of the Parties to complete the purchase and delivery of the VERs but it is at the
Buyer’s discretion, acting reasonably, whether to accept the Replacement Units, however, should the Buyer
decide to accept the Replacement Units, it will confirm its agreement of the same to the Seller within ten
(10) Business Days from the date of the receipt of the aforementioned information. The Seller shall then
deliver to the Buyer the Replacement Credits within ten (10) Business Days from the date of the Buyer’s
written notice of acceptance of such Replacement Units, or
ii) pay the original amount of the USDC calculated in accordance with Clause 6.2
iii) it is understood between the Parties that the Buyer can opt to get insurance on the delivery of EXPost Certificates based on the Buyer’s purchase of Ex Ante Certificates. This insurance is available through
Lloyd’s of London.
Vintage Year Acquired; Percentage of Total Purchased
2024; 2.04%
2025; 6.67%
2026; 15.65%
2027; 30.43%
2028; 45.21%
5 Year Total; 100.0%
Financials
USD 16.50 per ex-ante carbon offset certificate.
Acceptance of USDC as payment
Market Outlook
Deloitte made an upward adjustment to their market outlook and now estimates a 100 billion USD Carbon
Offset market.
Co-Benefits
Project Co-Benefits
GRO prides itself in focusing on SDG impact and directly collaborates with Local UN Departments. Our
methodology is geared towards maximizing social impact for participating communities and we touch
every SDG.
Initially we focus on infrastructure for water and food security. This gives communities time to “think”.
Next, we focus on rural electrification and skills development with special care for orphans, youth and
women gaining applicable vocational skills and entrepreneurial training.
Finally, we provide unsecured microfinance for livelihood projects in exchange for protecting our trees.
Teaching a man to fish is not enough. We want this man or woman to have a boat, a fishing rod, and a
fishing net. We want him to catch enough fish so that another person can afford a truck just t transport
them to market for sale with enough supply that a third person can open a fish restaurant and a fourth
person industrialize fish to multiple other products for export.
This is how we beat poverty.
Partnership Co-Benefits
GRO offers multiple ways for collaboration beyond purchasing carbon certificates.
We white label our solution so that companies can use our social impact initiatives in their marketing
campaigns. We also enable white label campaigns that integrate tree planting with partners.
Our white label campaigns allow for community building and to pass on the cost of offsetting carbon to
the users, while enhancing corporate social responsibility and market credibility.
• Imagine if you could offer 1 tree to be planted for every sale or service of a certain value.
• Imagine if you could certify your product as green OR extend green certification to your clients
for purchasing your products or services.
• Imagine if you could launch your own e.g. We are planting 10 million trees, campaign!
• Imagine if you could support women, children and orphans and/or wildlife through your sales.
