SOCIETAL GAIN
At the heart of our Societal Gain work is the ‘Community Circles Plan’, based on a synthesis of knowledge gained in over 40 years of working and trading in the organic and regenerative channel from the fields to the tables in the Americas and Africa. The basis of the plan is anchored in several key principles – traditional, simple and powerful.
First, that 80%+ of basic supplies and provisions can be obtained locally, in one’s own community circle.
Secondly, that indigenous diversity is the key to the success of this provisioning.
Thirdly, that processing and storage are essential for nonnomadic communities and sedentary agriculture.
Fourthly, that following the above principles has at least the following outcomes:
- reducing poverty because basic provisions are affordable when locally sourced due to the elimination of layers of transportation, distribution and brokerage expenses
- income from local trade stays local and is managed locally through local credit unions
- tremendous reductions in carbon emissions compared to current supply chain sources
- preservation of ecological and cultural diversity by using indigenous sources
- sequestration of carbon through regenerative means of agriculture
- increasing value of carbon credits by long term, stable community based economic development
- enabling local processing and storage creates new business and differentiated job opportunities spreading skills and income potential across a larger cross section of a community
- extra income available to support local health and education - certifying for organic and regenerative products creates a higher value for products that are eventually distributed out to neighboring communities, regions or international markets. - enables displaced families and individuals repatriate to their homelands with the possibility of income and being able to provide for a home
Lastly, the Community Circles Plan helps communities to become sustainable in the face of pandemics and disasters, creating sustainable food and provision independence and food sovereignty. The basic plan concept is applied uniquely for each community because each community has unique characteristics – this is the magic, and success, of the plan.
R.I.S.E.
Joined-Up Thinking
REAL
Is it real to work in the Congo Basin? Can a successful project be developed and implemented? Can the risk be mitigated to sustain the value of carbon credits? While the increase in demand for carbon credits is significant, analysis indicates that demand in 2030 could be matched by the potential annual supply of carbon credits: 8 to 12 GtCO₂ per year. These carbon credits would come largely from two key categories: avoided nature loss (including deforestation) and nature-based sequestration, such as reforestation. However, several factors make it challenging to mobilize the entire potential supply and bring it to market. The development of projects must ramp up at an unprecedented rate. Most of the potential supply of avoided nature loss and of nature-based sequestration is concentrated in a small number of countries. All projects come with risks, and many struggle to attract financing because of the long lag times between the initial investment and the eventual sale of credits. High-quality carbon credits are scarce because accounting and verification methodologies vary and because credits’ co-benefits (such as community economic development and biodiversity protection) are seldom well defined. When verifying the quality of new credits—an important step in maintaining the market’s integrity—suppliers endure long lead times. When selling those credits, suppliers face unpredictable demand and can seldom fetch economical prices. Overall, the market is characterized by low liquidity, scarce financing, inadequate risk-management services, and limited data availability. Fortunately, two realities exist for us in our efforts to ramp up the integrity, value and sale of credits from the carbon projects we foster in the Congo Basin. One is the existence of a successful project known as Wildlife Works in the Mai-Ndombe Province. This project has been in existence for 14 years and has successfully survived a transfer of power from one administration to another during that time. The proof of concept of this project, which features many similar aspects of our approach to development (not including our supply chain development) is currently supporting voluntary sales at $20.00/credit. The success of the Wildlife Works project leads to the second reality for us which is the Community Circles community development plan. Our plan has a track record of jumpstarting and sustaining successful scalable community development and significantly helping to mitigate the risk of breaching the agreements created in the conversion plan from logging to other forms of community-based economy by creating equal or better livelihoods for community members. Our credits’ co-benefits, mentioned above (community economic development and biodiversity protection), are well defined in our Community Circles plan, greatly enhancing our ability to expedite the value, sale and availability of credits and making it REAL!
IMMEDIATE
The unprecedented availability of massive funding for climate based and sustainable work, which the Institute has been promised for viable plans, is the basis for substantiating the claim that the project base we have established can begin immediately. The Community Circles program plan includes the process of converting the economy from deforestation income to regenerative agriculture based income in the first phase. Funding and immediate local sales, combined with the sale of validated voluntary carbon credit sales, quick starts the process.
The Community Circles program applied to the conversion plans allows us to design projects that serve the communities while also serving potential customers of export products. Working together with qualified companies in designing the agricultural offerings and processes is a win-win for communities and companies alike.
SCALEABLE
The most important aspect of the Community Circles Plan is scalability. The concept is simple and based in the truth of the historical legacy of commerce – many small successful suboperations can create a very large successful overarching operation. The scalability of the Community Circles plan is based on the strategic placement of the initial suboperations. The ability of these suboperations to connect and trade, creates the framework within which others can join in and scale the entire operation. We have proven this concept in Ghana with our collaboration with Dr. Bronner’s Soap, Golden Web vegetable oil processor and Serendipalm (sustainable palm oil from smallholder farms in Ghana) that supplies palm oil from wild (or domesticated wild) native palm trees to the processor who processes hexane free refined palm oil for the soap industry.
We have further proven this concept in partnership with Natural Habitats who manages small holder operations in Sierra Leone and Ecuador. We learned the concept in Liberia under the excellent tutelage of Gibson Tulay, the director of Coop Development Agency of the Country of Liberia. With a government MOU we were able to collaborate and organize over 100,000 small holder farmers within 400 Coops for organic regenerative crop production in cocoa and palm oil. Today, the effort is still evolving into greater levels of sustainability with more local sales and processing.
EFFICIENT
The most exciting attribute of the Community Circles plan is the efficiency of it. The purpose of the work is not only to convert the economy of an area to an alternate path, but it is also to do so in a manner that meets the sustainable goals of reducing carbon emissions. The Community Circles plan specifically addresses the reduction of emissions by focusing on the pattern of commerce as being local trade first, regional trade second, national trade third and international trade last.
The sustainability score mark of local trade is significantly higher than international trade and it is because of the efficiency of local trade. The ability of the Community Circles plan to deliver 80% of a market’s provisions locally is a huge reduction in the current emissions attached to the current supply chain.
Disaster Risk Reduction
All of our planning for the Soutenir sites takes fully into account the need to plan for Disaster Risk Reduction - for both our communities and our environment.
Climate change, urban pressure and lack of disaster preparedness, are increasingly transforming natural hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or tsunamis into disastrous events causing life and economic losses. The risk of disasters caused by natural hazards is rising. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is increasing in the agenda of the Organisations of the UN System. While the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 is the roadmap for Disaster Risk Reduction, other global agendas including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement, the New Urban Agenda and the Biodiversity Agenda have targets that cannot be attained without considering Disaster Risk Reduction. There are clear links between those international instruments.
Natural hazards are naturally-occurring physical phenomena caused by either the rapid or slow onset of events having atmospheric, geologic and hydrologic origins on solar, global, regional, national or local scales. Disasters often follow natural hazards and they are a result of the combination of hazards, the conditions of vulnerability and of the insufficient capacity or measures to reduce the potentially negative consequences of the hazard. Disaster risk reduction is the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyse and reduce the causal factors of disasters.
Investment in disaster risk prevention and reduction through structural and non-structural measures are essential to enhance economic, social, health and cultural resilience.
The environment and ecosystems play a vital role in disaster risk reduction. Ecosystems such as forests, mangroves, peat lands aid in preventing and mitigating hazard and climate change risks. Investing in eco disaster risk reduction and good management of river basins, coastal zones and protected areas help build resilience of vulnerable communities and countries while supporting their livelihoods, and meeting their basic needs, such as providing food, water and shelter. The key is to work with nature, not against it, to increase resilience and help communities reach the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction targets, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
(Basis source for text: UNESCO DRR documentation)