Fighting Climate Change: Cardano Foundation Plants Over 1M Trees

The Cardano Foundation – a non-profit leading Cardano’s development – has reached its first milestone towards land restoration in Kenya. It has successfully planted over 1 million trees, each of which will be recorded on the Cardano blockchain.

Trees for TREE token

Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard announced the achievement on Sunday. He said that the foundation is attempting to position the blockchain as “a leader” in efforts to address climate change, and ultimately as a force for good.

“The #CardanoForest will support land restoration and local ecosystem development activities in Mombasa, Kenya,” he explained. “All trees planted will be recorded on the Cardano blockchain for enhanced transparency and serve as public proof of land restoration activities.”

The foundation is conducting its tree-planting endeavor in partnership with Veritree, which uses blockchain technology to record data on its nature restoration efforts.

The organization plants a tree every time Cardano users exchange ADA for TREE token. Those tokens can later be exchanged for digital tree NFTs, whose rarity depends on how much ADA the initial token cost. Gregaard calls the Cardano Forest project “the MVP to showcase how SDG reporting can be transparent with blockchain technology.”

Transactional data shows that one wallet exchanged as many as 100 000 ADA for an equivalent number of TREE tokens, hence planting 100 000 trees. That’s over $115 000 at the time of writing.

Cardano and the Climate

Cardano is attempting to distinguish itself from other blockchains by pursuing an eco-friendly narrative, in contrast to Bitcoin and Ethereum. The latter two blockchains use a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, which requires computers across the planet – aka “miners” – to spend vast energy to secure their networks. This has become a contentious ethical issue among some communities.

By contrast, Cardano uses a “proof-of-stake” mechanism, which requires only a small fraction of Bitcoin’s energy to provide security – though there are other tradeoffs.

Last May, Elon Musk announced that Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin due to energy use concerns. Shortly afterward, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson argued that Tesla should use ADA as an energy-efficient replacement.