O.N.E Amazon, a company focused on creating sustainable impact for the environment and investors by using next-generation technology to bring innovation to conservation, has been launched at COP 28. It will enable investors from around the world to participate in the preservation of the 750 million-hectare Amazon biome.

 

Co-founded by entrepreneur and CEO Rodrigo Veloso, and chaired by former Blackrock Chief Investment Officer Peter Knez, O.N.E. Amazon has a bold ambition to better the lives of approximately 35 million men, women and children who call the Amazon region home, by enabling the market to place a monetary value on the world’s largest and most critical rainforest.

 

It will achieve this through the issuance of a regulated O.N.E. Amazon Digital Asset Security. Each security will represent the perceived value of one hectare of biome in the Amazon rainforest, backed by a 30-year preservation agreement over that land, with an impressive long-term land preservation agreement for 50 million hectares of rainforest, an area larger than Spain, already secured.

 

O.N.E. Amazon Digital Asset Security

The issuance of the O.N.E. Amazon Digital Asset Security will create a market mechanism to value the total biome of the Amazon rainforest and its collective impact on society while funding critical conservation and green projects. 

 

Proceeds from the purchase of the O.N.E Amazon Digital Asset Security will go into the O.N.E Amazon Impact Fund (O.A.I.F), which will create jobs for the local Amazonian communities and accelerate the energy transition of the countries through which the Amazon rainforest extends. 

 

The fund will invest in energy transition and circular economy projects, including infrastructure and clean energy generation projects, in addition to more localised community land preservation projects in the Amazon.

 

750 million securities

Investors will benefit from the potential capital appreciation of the security as the market values the positive environmental and social benefits of the rainforest’s biome. Given the finite size of the Amazon rainforest, the total number of securities will be restricted to 750 million, corresponding to the hectarage of the rainforest. Investors will also benefit from the dividend income from the O.A.I.F.

 

O.N.E. Amazon Chairman Knez said: “The Amazon rainforest and its rich and expansive biome should be valued in the trillions, given its immense and critical value globally, across all living species.

 

“It is the Earth’s most important natural resource, and for the first time, we’re enabling the market to value it as such, by turning it into an advanced digital asset security. We believe we can alleviate and reverse some of the shortcomings that have damaged the Amazon rainforest, uplifting and enabling communities while presenting investors and landowners with an opportunity for financial gain.”

 

Perpetual solution

O.N.E. Amazon CEO Veloso added: “Historically, immense pressure has been placed on often-underfunded local governments to fund the preservation of a huge and globally relevant land mass. Our vision is to relieve some of that pressure by offering a perpetual solution to saving the Amazon rainforest and to price it as one of the most valuable assets on the planet, in its preserved natural rainforest state.

 

“Amazonian landowners retain ownership of their land and benefit from the significant sums of money that will flow back into Amazon restoration and sustainable infrastructure. We’re proud to partner with Governments and local and indigenous communities, and collaborate with local NGOs to ensure all preservation efforts are targeted in the right places.”

 

To ensure full accountability and transparency, O.N.E Amazon is collaborating with MIT Media Lab, creating a framework to monitor every hectare that is tokenised against a Digital Asset Security, thus creating the world’s first Internet of Forest (IoF). This will provide a data-driven, real-time understanding of what’s happening in the Amazon biome. 

 

Officially launched on December 2, 2023 at COP28 in Dubai, the company expects to commence the first offering of its Digital Asset Security in Q1 2024.

 

The O.N.E Amazon Impact Fund is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and will initially focus on the funding of projects in Colombia.--TradeArabia News Service