Startup Series: Open Forest Protocol

Today's guests are Fred Fournier, Co-Founder & CEO, and Michael Kelly, Co-Founder & CPO of Open Forest Protocol. Open Forest Protocol (OFP) is on a mission to accelerate the global response to climate change via nature-based solutions. The startup is building a product that will allow reforestation and afforestation projects, conservation organizations, and forest managers to easily measure, report, and verify environmental data from their land. The current MRV landscape is expensive and inaccessible, inhibiting the establishment of a global carbon economy. Open Forest Protocol has built a system for accessible and transparent forest MRV, laying the foundation for an accelerated response to humanity's greatest existential threat. Before OFP, Fred co-founded ON A MISSION, a non-profit organization enabling businesses and individuals to invest in local, sustainable reforestation projects to compensate for carbon emissions. Fred and his team at ON A MISSION discovered that measuring, recording, and verifying (MRV) reforestation was difficult. At the same time, Michael was focusing on designing a protocol to track and verify things like tress using blockchain technology. So in October 2020, Fred and Michael co-founded Open Forest Protocol and continued their work to decarbonize and reforest the planet. In this episode, I'm joined by Michael and Fred of OFP. We dive into Open Forest Protocol's approach, why marrying blockchain and reforestation will bring us into the clean future, and how Fred and Michael co-founded OFP. We also talk about the existing carbon verification and certification landscape, OFP's community fund, and an overview of NEAR. This is a great episode if you're interested in learning more about web3 and climate change. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded January 4th, 2022