An uneven playing field
In Hasten’s work to address climate change and biodiversity loss in India, smallholder farmers tell us a consistent and bleak story – once-fertile lands are barely able to feed their families, soils are depleted, water has disappeared, the forests surrounding the farmlands are gone, and the changing weather patterns make for smaller, unpredictable harvests.
These farmers understand their current practices are unsustainable, but are unable to adopt regenerative practices due to lack of knowhow or resources. Plus, the economics of implementing regeneration doesn’t pencil out. It makes more sense for a family to cut down a tree than to leave it standing; to abandon a barren farm and migrate to the city rather than stay and restore it.
Meanwhile, a fraction of the billions of dollars invested annually in climate projects and technologies makes its way to rural communities. Global investors consider nature based investments risky for many reasons, and routinely choose “safer” bets like carbon capture machines or solar panels.
Today’s nature based climate projects are typically designed to maximize carbon capture, compromising on biodiversity outcomes and leaving communities with little income to show for their efforts. In the words of Charlie Monger, “show me the incentive, and I will show you the outcome.” is the crux of the problem; current incentives are not aligned with farmer needs. If we align incentives then we can make nature based investments much less risky than how they are perceived today. By leveling the playing field, we can accelerate humanity’s response to the climate and biodiversity crisis, and work at the required scale.
Climate & biodiversity action for all
Our vision for the Xylo platform is to enable anyone, anywhere, to take climate and biodiversity action, equitably. We give rural communities direct access to global climate markets, unlocking resources to regenerate land assets. We connect global climate capital providers directly to local climate and biodiversity action. Micro actions by millions of smallholders add up to mega impact for climate change, biodiversity loss and poverty alleviation.
Through our platform (inspired by Societal Thinking, ONDC and through collaboration with Beckn /FIDE), rural small landholders are compensated to regenerate air, soil, water, farms, and forests, leading to increased climate resilience. This benefits local communities while contributing to national and international climate action targets. Farmers are provided with knowhow and resources required to improve their land assets. They decide what and how much to invest, and how to manage the assets they’ve created, including participating directly in the global carbon markets.
The platform enables local enterprises to provide climate- and biodiversity-related products and services. Native saplings, soil amendments, planting and maintenance services, and low-cost financing are transacted; as the marketplace matures and evolves, local entrepreneurs can identify supply gaps and innovation opportunities.
An initial offer to test the platform is a “legacy forest,” a small farm forest composed of native species that creates immediate income from payments for ecosystem services, medium term income through produce, and “legacy” income through sale of carbon credits. Together with AF Ecology Centre, we’re making legacy forests available to drought-stricken farmers in Anantapur.
If you’re an NGO, philanthropy, financial institution, agri-tech provider, institutional carbon credit purchaser, or climate action enthusiast, sign up here to stay connected as we launch the platform.