Meet the Founders | Top climate tech builders introduced

The world is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis. Rising emission levels and other forms of pollution are threatening the health of our planet and its inhabitants. A growing number of entrepreneurs are stepping forward in response to this challenge. They are building products, services, and technology that addresses the climate crisis from different angles, and blockchains provide them with the best tooling to do so.

Everyone can build on Toucan's infrastructure to accelerate climate action. We love to see this — innovation and added utility benefits the entire ecosystem. In our series “Meet the Founders”, we talk to the people developing novel products on top of Toucan. Read about their diverse backgrounds, hear inspiring stories, and see what’s possible with tokenized carbon credits.

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Toucan builds technology to unlock climate action at scale. Our digital infrastructure is helping the voluntary carbon market grow with transparency and high integrity, by increasing the flow of revenue to the most effective climate impact projects. Our technology is designed to bring both established and nascent environmental assets on the blockchain.

Climate builders can develop products that expand or complement Toucan’s open infrastructure, or leverage tokenized carbon credits (sometimes called carbon offsets) in blockchain applications.

Climate tech needs diverse founders

“Meet the Founders” is a series of open conversations with top climate builders in the blockchain-based climate action ecosystem (ReFi). We are asking questions about the challenges they have faced, the lessons they have learned, the impact they are making on the world, and what advice they can give to new builders. The exciting thing here: builders come from various countries and backgrounds — and we’re excited to educate and support more and more diverse founders, as we strongly believe that innovation profits tremendously from diversity.

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ReFi is an umbrella term for blockchain-powered applications that benefit communities and environments. ReFi approaches are rooted in the theory of regenerative economics and explore systems that both maintain and restore the physical resources essential for human and planetary well-being.

Adrian Wons, founder of tokenized carbon marketplace Senken, for instance, has a background in computational fluid dynamics in the wind energy space. Helena Merk has touched everything from mobile game engines to cloud infrastructure to video streaming, before founding automated climate action protocol Spirals. Alexandre Peschel worked in digital design and development, before co-founding carbon API Atem. Kieran White of Return Protocol (a fun application that lets you compete with friends for more climate action) had stints at Tesla and Lasso Loop Recycling.

All these founders ventured into ReFi for different reasons, but are motivated by a common aim: to help coordinate and accelerate our response to the climate crisis.

Farouq Gandour, founder of Neutral Protocol, which allows users to trade ecological assets, says:

I am driven to ReFi because we’re leveraging exciting technology to tackle one of the toughest problems of our generation. The benefits that Web3 can provide in the development of regenerative economies and systems seemed obvious, and too exciting to not be a part of.

Supporting builders via our Builder Hub

Our Builder Hub is a valuable resource that provides personalized advice, networking opportunities, marketing support, and access to grants for innovative projects building on Toucan's infrastructure.

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If more entrepreneurs are involved in building climate impact businesses, the industry as a whole gets stronger. Successful companies attract capital, create jobs, and motivate more entrepreneurs to join the movement of climate action, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of growth and impact.

If you are building with Toucan carbon, we encourage you to keep us in the loop. Tag us on Twitter or LinkedIn with updates on your progress, or say hello via email.

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