►
Description
The Regen Network Science Team organized an online retreat to get input from the community on ways to effectively incentivize onboarding and continued improvement of regenerative practices. The inspiration behind the retreat was the realization that there are too many barriers for many land stewards to overcome to benefit from enrolling in carbon credit markets. We also want to support methods that embrace the way land stewards think holistically about their practices rather than focusing primarily on a single metric such as carbon stock.
The retreat was a success! After an introduction presentation, we hosted four two-hour sessions to address the following components: community, funding, data collection and storage, verification, legitimacy, and methodologies. Discussions around each of these topics were vibrant, fueled by the broad range of participants’ experiences and perspectives. We are synthesizing feedback to develop strategies and next steps to lower the bar of entry for land stewards to adopt regenerative practices.
If you are interested in participating in future steps, reach out to Ned at ned.horning@regen.network.
Here are some additional resources from the retreat:
Slide presentation: https://bit.ly/3gB9qj5
Component descriptions: https://bit.ly/3suDNNT
Retreat Mural page: https://bit.ly/3szRU4j
Retreat synthesis Notion page: https://bit.ly/3GI6EDB
A
Okay,
so
if
you
go
ahead
and
look
at
group,
one's
breakout
for
this
first
question
that
we
discussed
was
how
can
we
leverage
conventional
funding
mechanisms
such
as
donations,
grants
and
subsidiaries
or
subsidies?
The
topics
of
discussion
were
r
d
grant
programs.
This
idea
of
toxic
and
basic
common
income
for
biodiversity.
A
We
also
took
a
look
at
look
at
locally
governed
funding,
pools
for
tsps,
for
monitoring,
planning
and
locally
qualified
practices,
and
also
considering
corporate
supply
chains
and
premium
pricing
claims,
and
to
move
on
to
the
next
question
that
we
discussed
was:
should
external
funding
stop
after
onboarding?
How
long
should
funding
continue?
A
And
while
we
were
also
discussing
this,
we
were
also
talking
about
how
individuals,
in
those
spaces
that
are
that
belong
to
groups
that
are
concerned
about
the
health
of
water
quality,
can
have
a
voice
to
explain
that
they
care
about
certain
practices
or
projects
and
yeah.
So
that
was
a
brief
overview
of
what
we
talked
about.
Anyone
from
the
group
is
welcome
to
summarize
or
mention
any
points
that
I
failed
to
mention
or
cover.
B
B
Like
some
of
our
interesting
conversations
were
kind
of
on
the
behavioral
level
of
thinking
about
like
defaults
and
how
defaults
are
used
and
like
opt-in
and
opt-out
systems
such
like,
how
do
how
are
those
mechanics
already
at
play
within
different
funding
structures
and
like?
Are
they
relevant
or
not,
or
what
are
the
ethics
behind
those
so
yeah?
Just
to
add
that
I
felt
like
the
kind
of
almost
the
behavioral
economic
question
of
defaults
and
like
subscriptions
and
those
processes.
What
are
the
ethics
of
those.
E
We
went
into
some
discussions
about.
You
know
video
assets
as
being
important,
the
need
to
engage
and-
and
this
kind
of
went
to
the
equity
questions.
So
how
do
you
get
more
people,
understanding
and
involved?
And
that
really
has
to
do
with
the
narrative?
Where
do
they
fit
in
the
narrative?
One
of
the
things
we
talked
about
is
turbo
tax
software.
It
basically
asks
you
questions
about
your
life
for
the
past
year
and
while
it
does
that
it
just
does
your
taxes,
so
so
that
should
be
a
similar
experience
in
order.
D
E
But
why
can't?
Why
can't
that
be
the
same
for
for
climate
and
for
things
that
have
value
so
marketing
having
fun
using
using
social
media
is
important,
and
so
then
I'll
go
back
to
this
theme
of
traditional
tools
so
so
kind
of
the
old
tools
we
talked
about.
How
can
underwriters
at
banks
use
regenerative
practices
in
their
underwriting?
E
E
We
talked
about
microfinancing
in
brazil
and
the
importance
of
that,
and
so
that
that
kind
of,
I
think,
is
in
the
gray
area
between
traditional
and
new
tools.
Micro
financing
has
been
around
for
a
while.
We
talked
about
peer-to-peer
networks.
The
idea
that
a
group
of
farmers
might
be
able
to
come
together
or
individual,
but
they
could
lend
to
each
other.
E
That
would
be
interesting.
We
talked
about
potentially
donor
advised
funds
in
institutional
investing
as
still
viable
tools
that
can
help
push
things
forward,
and
then
we
talked
about
new
tools,
so
there's
a
huge
long
list:
quadratic
funding
and
voting
mechanisms,
new
crowdsourcing
mechanisms,
allocation
engines,
automated
distribution
and
non-token-based
funding.
E
So
because
of
this
complexity,
I
talked
about
and
telling
a
story.
People
need
help,
farmers
don't
know
and
don't
have
the
time
really
to
learn
all
these
tools.
I
mean
it
gets
complicated
every
year.
So
how
do
we?
How
do
we
hand
hold
them?
How
do
we
get
them
to
participate
but
not
erect
barriers
because
of
the
technical
solutions?
E
So
I
liken
some
of
things
we
talked
about
was
needing
more
visualizations,
and
I
I
threw
an
example
of
like
no
code
tools,
they're
exploding
everywhere,
where
you
can
build
anything,
you
don't
need
to
know
code.
So
how
do
we
do
that
in
this
space?
How
do
we
reduce
the
complexity,
and
I
think
that
covered
the
basis
we
talked
a
little
bit
about
project
drawdown
in
the
region
network
got
into
some
more
specifics,
but
anybody
else
from
my
from
our
our
group
can
also
chime
in
if
there's
something
I
missed.
E
G
So
so
you
know
having
participated
in
the
the
gitcoin
round
and
following
what
kevin
and
those
guys
are
doing,
I
I
think
for
dows
right
or
dows
abdows
quadratic
funding
is
super
interesting,
because
groups
can
come
together
and
all
have
different
interests,
but
then
they
have
a
say
in
where
the
greater
funds
are
going
and
but
it's
not
it's
not
biased
either.
It's
not
a
whale,
isn't
controlling
all
that.
It's
like
one
thing
we've
talked
about.
G
You
know,
there's
a
refi,
dow,
that's
forming
on
twitter
and
basically
the
individuals
are
members,
and
then
organizations
are
partners
and
the
partners
don't
outweigh
the
members
and
quadratic
funding
starts
to
actually
work
in
that
situation
because
the
the
more
individual
members
you
have
right.
It
starts
to
steer
the
greater
portions
of
funding
that
way.
So
that's
an
example.
G
C
C
E
I
Sure
yeah
I'll
be
reporting
on
group
three,
so
we
started
out
with
a
big
picture
question
of.
Why
are
we
discussing
funding
or
what
is
funding
for?
And
we
talked
through
kind
of
all
different
factors
to
the
cost
of
monitoring
to
transition
costs
from
conventional
to
regenerative,
or
maybe
people
are
already
doing
regenerative
activity,
but
not
getting
paid
for
it
yet
or
maybe
the
value
of
their
land
is
going
down
or
its
fertility
is
going
down
because
they're
currently
using
degrading
practices,
and
then
then
we
transitioned
into
some
discussion
around
education
and
I
think
education.
I
We
can
probably
use
that
term
to
describe
a
lot
of
things
here:
education,
around
regenerative
agriculture,
around
payments
for
ecosystem
services
around
web
three,
there's
kind
of
a
lot
of
ways
to
be
engaging
people.
We
were
discussing
kind
of
what
maybe
you
call
them
on-ramps
and
off-ramps,
or
something
like
that.
Like
we
discussed
in
some
cases,
farmers
are
just
going
to
want
to
use
the
the
cash
that's
accepted
as
local
currency
in
in
their
country.
I
In
other
cases,
they
might
be
unbanked
to
begin
with
and
be
like
web
3
native
and
working
with
some
kind
of
alternative
local
currency.
That's
that's
web
3.,
or
maybe
maybe
their
d5
savvy
and
are
are
fine
with
kind
of
current
stable
coins
that
are
available.
But
just
this
question
of
how
to
how
do
farmers
actually
get
capital
that
they
can
spend
and
used
to
to
to
capitalize
regenerative
agriculture?
I
I
Certainly,
farmers
are
excited
about
practice-based
credits,
but
what
what's
kind
of
buyer's
reception
to
them,
and
also
we
discussed
the
the
kind
of
substantial
risk
that
anyone
is
taking
on
in
anticipating
the
value
of
future
credits.
We
talked
about
the
relationship
between
practice
and
outcome,
based
credits
that
that
practice
are
essentially
paying
people
up
front
and
outcome.
Are
that
we're
saying
you've
already
done
this
and
the
idea
that
there's
a
relationship
between
practices
and
outcomes?
I
I
On
that,
I'm
sure
tax
strategy
will
vary
from
jurisdiction
to
jurisdiction,
but
that's
definitely
one
factor
to
consider
and
then
then,
the
the
one
of
the
final
things
we
were
discussing
is
just
would
we
want?
Would
we
want
to
be
working
in
regulated
markets
like
registering
to
to
sell
futures
so
so
that
way,
we'd
be
able
to
work
with
institutional
capital
providers
and
also
just
discussing?
J
I
want
to
add
to
that
well
and
say
that
one
other
kind
of
bigger
thought
that
was
amidst
all
of
this
was
about
how
all
of
the
the
multi-dimensionality
to
all
of
this,
so
the
spectrum
of
practices,
the
spectrum
of
buyers,
the
different
ways
that
people
can
interact
and
participate.
The
different
funding
mechanisms
that
would
work-
and
it
seems
like
a
framework
with
the
lens
of
funding-
will
need
to
have
options.
H
I'd
like
to
echo
that
as
well,
that's
one
of
the
main
things
that
stood
out
for
me
was
the
menu
approach,
having
options
for
both
the
buyers
and
the
producers,
because
what
may
have
value
for
some
organizations
or
businesses
or
certain
regions
may
not
be
valuable
to
others,
and
one
other
thing
I'd
like
to
highlight
here
is
teemo.
He
mentioned.
How
do
we
change
the
narrative?
How
do
we
make
regenerative
agriculture
just
agriculture?
How
do
we
make
regenerative
finance
just
finance?
H
How
do
we?
How
do
we
make
the
the
fringe
which
may
be
web
3
or
blockchain
more
mainstream,
and
I
think
blake
answered
that
question
very
well
about
the
storytelling.
So
I
think
that
you
know
how
do
we
create
these
narratives?
These
stories
is
going
to
be
very
important
to
to
help
educate
and
transform
into
new
economies,
so
regenerative
economies.
G
Yeah
and
to
echo
that
point
ishmael
then
like,
like,
I
feel
like
we're
creating
the
narrative
right
like
we
can
interview
buyers
and
we
can
interview
suppliers,
but
then
we
can
also
like
stare.
You
know,
steer
the
narrative
and
help
create
pricing
and
create
mark
markets
for
this
stuff.
So,
like
education
and
storytelling
to
me
is
like
a
huge
component
of
this
and
how
we
distill
the
message
down
to
a
very
simple.
K
I
guess
I'll
start
with
the
one
that
had
the
most
discussion,
which
was:
how
can
we
create
thriving
markets
around
credits?
I
think
one
of
the
interesting
things
we
talked
about
was
getting
non-traditional
buyers
in
these
markets,
like
people
who
are
just
interested
in
offsetting
their
missions,
and
one
thing
that
came
up
was
kind
of
using
games
to
do
that.
K
K
And
then
we
talked
about
grants
and
we
talked
a
lot
about
about
usda
and
how
there's
a
lot
of
money
that
can
be
put
towards
projects,
but
how
that's?
The
organization
is
a
little
messy
and
it
can
kind
of
be
complex
to
navigate
and
get
funding
into
your
project,
whereas
smart
contracts
and
dows
can
kind
of
provide
more
direct
funding
and
less
friction
for
projects.
K
K
L
Can
you
hear
me
now
yeah
one
thing
that
came
up
that
I
thought
was
really
interesting
was
like
how
practice-based
methodologies
were
potentially
more
like.
They
could
have
more
benefit
within,
like
a
local
kind
of
setting,
where
a
lot
of
there's
like
land
trust
community,
like
community
land,
trust
projects,
popping
up
and
dao's
that
could
represent
local
communities
and
how
practice-based
methodologies
could
be
ways
to
kind
of
build.
L
J
D
Down
all
right
so
for
tomorrow,
tomorrow,
we'll
address
two
components:
the
methodology,
development
and
legitimacy.
So
what
we'll
do
is
we'll
break
out
into
breakout
groups?
Probably
two
breakout
groups
per
component,
we'll
just
see
how
many
people
are
there
and
what
your
interests
are,
which
group
you
want
to
participate
in
then
friday,
we'll
work
with
the
data,
data,
collection
and
storage
and
also
verification.
Those
will
be
the
two
components
that
are
that
are
covered
on
friday.
F
I
have
a
comment
and
I'm
sorry:
I
missed
the
breakout
rooms
but
blake
and
hope-
and
I
are
all
colleagues
working
on
a
regen
funded
project
and
the
first
work
stream
of
that
is
around
use
cases,
and
so
we're
really
looking
for
all
in
any
projects
that
we
can
apply
a
framework
to,
and
you
know
from
I'm
so
excited
because
hearing
some
of
the
things
on
this
call,
like
one
of
the
elements
of
the
use
case,
will
be
looking
around
like
language.
You
know
defining
what's
the
core
concept.
F
What's
the
background
for
where
this
use
case
kind
of
fits?
What
concepts
are
they
testing
sort
of
what
assumptions
they
have
in
place?
How
do
you
test
these
assumptions?
Sort
of
what
opportunities
are
they
going
after
and
what
market
they
fit
in?
So
if
anyone's
working
on
those
use
cases
please
get
in
touch
with
us,
because
we're
going
to
be
capturing
that
in
an
air
table
kind
of
delivering
it
as
part
of
this
grant.