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Exclusive: Sādu rewards us for prioritizing our well being

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In an exclusive interview with Brittany Salas of Sādu

Sādu is a mobile-based application that focuses on helping us live an eco-conscious lifestyle. The app makes it easy for everyone to reduce their environmental impact with a play to earn mobile app for nature-based carbon credits.  For being active and working out to stay fit, the platform gives us trees, and unites our well-being with the planet. Notably, this is a way of ensuring capital is efficiently allocated to the funding of carbon capture projects. These projects include nature-based solutions to climate change. Ultimately, Sādu is a tool that helps create a sustainable future.

Recently, Harsh Vardhan Kushwaha of The Coin Republic has interviewed Brittany Salas, the Co-Founder and CEO of Sādu. The session has covered exciting topics related to the millennial platform and impacts of technological revolution on our environment. Moreover, Yannick revealed that they would soon establish Generation Zero.

Brittany Salas follows an environmental-friendly path

I personally come from a background in venture capital and corporate innovation. So prior to all of this, I was working with different corporations to help them find startups to essentially reduce their environmental impact and scout on behalf of VCs to make investments into these companies. Through that process, I realized that getting “Climate Technology” or “Clean Technology” into organizations that are large enough to make an impact, whether it be an energy company, or a chemicals company really required incentives on a personal level from so many people to put the work and the time and the capital into investing in new technology that changed the way business is done. Realizing that incentive was something that had to be owned on a one to one level ground up, really pushed me to drive a tool that created this connection or awareness of environmental sustainability within daily life, and just create an easier way for individuals to unite their personal sense of well being with the health of the environment. Outside of a very agonizing or vocal argument about how climate change should be addressed from a very political perspective, I wanted to develop something that made climate action much more simple and easy to do.

Sādu is an unique environmental project

The goal is to unite the sense of personal well being, with the health of the ecosystem, and bring more awareness to the fact that those two are inevitably connected.
Taking care of the environment can seem like a daunting and overwhelming task that nobody can agree on how to solve. But in reality, it is just a matter of self preservation. There is this inherent survival instinct that is united, or let’s say, connected with doing something for the environment. So it’s not necessarily so much framed around a sacrifice. The idea that  I have to donate to, make sure we take care of the ecosystem, or I have to connect it with a political identity and vote in this way.We wanted to take all of that away, and really use fitness to connect with sense of personal wellness to everyday sustainability. 

So what we do is essentially reward fitness activities with trees planted in reforestation projects.  We actually measure the calories burned during activities. From that we create a calculation on the backend that allocates the amount of donations to different tree planting projects. Every time someone logs an activity, for every 250 calories burned, we allocate 22 cents to a project.  What that means is that if you’re able to set up Apple Health on your phone and your step counters measuring how far you want to go outside, and like take an extra walk that day, then essentially, that’s converted into a specific number of trees earned within the app. And then from there, we take that information, and we make contributions to the different projects.

We are working with five different projects at the moment; see trees, we forest, trees for the future, planted and greenstand.  All of them have a very unique approach to reforestation. Some are focused much more on the tech technical aspects of verifying that the trees have been planted and provide GPS coordinates to those exact trees. 

WeForest for example is  focused on ecosystem restoration, where they are looking at restoring wildlife corridors between areas that have been deforested. Trees for the Future focuses on forest gardens. They work with different farmers to have them plant trees around their crops. Fighting desertification within these local areas and increasing crop yields, so that the farmers are actually able to provide a better livelihood for themselves. 

With each of these projects are funded at the moment, crew challenges. So essentially, we’ll partner with different companies, organizations, fitness studios, or anyone who’s interested in running a group challenge for anywhere between $20 to $100 over 30 days to keep everyone as active as possible. From that we then measure the amount of contributions to the projects, and whatever is not allocated to the projects goes to Sadu as a profit. 

How Sādu leverages blockchain to increase its efficiency?

Yeah, I mean, I think that with that overview, you brought up a couple of very good points. And one is that stopping growth is not the best solution for every single country. The US bears the brunt of that responsibility as being one of the largest emitters on the planet but we also have the resources to be able to tackle that problem in a much different manner than other countries. 

One key important factor in what we’re working on is to really kind of decouple this sense of economic growth, from resource extraction. And this is where the really cool part of using NFTs and digital assets comes into play. So traditionally, we’re looking at the carbon market as donation based, like we had mentioned before, you buy a carbon credit from an organization that gets these credits has been certified by this international body. Then individuals like you, or I essentially have to figure out how to go to a specific website and buy these credits and make this donation. 

A different mentality  is needed to succeed in creating a viable climate solution, which essentially brings profit to individuals who are participating in these solutions. And so what I mean by that is, if we look at the carbon market, right now, it’s very difficult for small scale farmers to get involved. It often costs over $10,000 to have the verification process certified. So it means that if I want to go and plant forest, and then, you know, put it on one of these international markets, you’re looking at an investment between $10 to $30,000. You know, and that’s not feasible for a lot of people, especially if you only have maybe 200 to 500 acres of land. 

And on top of that, the access to the carbon market itself is pretty complicated. If you’re a large corporation, you know how to kind of buy in bulk. But anyone else on an individual basis also just has to trust that whatever $20, they’re allocating to a project is, going somewhere useful. And so we’re actually looking at NFTs as a way to bring more transparency, and traceability to that process and decrease the cost for anyone who actually wants to start planting trees and earning money from carbon credits. 

That’s why we’re actually focusing on NFTs as a way to incorporate more data from individuals who are planting trees, backed by, you know, a third party verifier and some satellite data that verifies that the trees are there as well. Packaging that into an NFT and being able to essentially use that NFT as an equivalent to a carbon credit on the market right now, then involve some of the typical market mechanisms that you see in DeFi. 

We’re starting off with the more creative sides of NFT which also contains information on where a tree has been planted, who planted it where and when it was done, you can verify that’s there. But in the long run, if we’re looking at these tokens specifically, you could say that they would essentially be able to accrue value over time, as climate change gets worse. And as carbon becomes more valuable. Essentially, whatever amount of carbon is sequestered at this moment will be more valuable in the future and so will the tree it is associated with.

What is the direct correlation of NFT trees?

Our goal is to ensure that there are more trees in the ground, and that it’s easier for people to keep these trees alive.  NFT trees, which is so fun to say that we couldn’t let it go, explains immediately what we’re working on. Creating a digital representation of a living tree, in augmented reality that you can earn in the app with your fitness activities. And so what that looks like in the app is you sync your fitness tracker, and you earn 100 trees, you get an option to win this NFT tree. 

What it renders as on a mobile device is essentially an Augmented Reality (AR), say, filter of a tree or a digital asset that you can impose on your environment around you and share on social media. And that also contains all the metadata that I had mentioned before, regarding the verification of the living tree itself, and can be sent to an external marketplace to show as your own collection or shown as your collection within the app itself. 

And so from that, we are building on the  play to earn concept, where you’re essentially logging your fitness activities and earning this an NFT tree, or what would be equivalent to a verified carbon credit, and then can place that or sell that on an external market.

So we’re excited to get this first iteration out and then understand, what are the different ways that we can continue to build a business model around this? And how do we address more complex factors like ensuring that funding is going to the projects in a way that makes it easier for them to manage their tree planting operations on the ground? Or how it actually interplays with the carbon market and what essentially would become an enterprise grade carbon credit? Does this NFT tree have enough information to serve that function? These are all the things that we can explore as we move forward?

How does Sādu give a sense of saving the environment?

It definitely makes sense for us to work with those who are like digitally native, let’s say, and have access to the technology even now, the projects that we’re working with, even though they’re in countries in the Global South, or working in rural areas, they’ve been on the ground for close to 20 years. And so they have experience working with these local communities and a really well established infrastructure in which to teach individuals, you know, how to plant forest gardens, or essentially run a nursery.

But I think it’ll take time, at first, for Sādu, at least, we have to work with partners who have a lot of experience in getting these projects off the ground and up and running. And I think in terms of individuals on the app user side, if you’re looking to use the app as a way to reduce your environmental impact, there’s always the option to make contributions, just financially to the projects and kind of work in this trust based economy. And that would probably be a good starting step. But I do have to say that for the majority of the market, it does come from, or at least our target market, like there is an awareness of privilege, and an awareness of the fact that like, Hey, I’m happy, and hopefully, healthy and can get up and work out every morning and earn my trees. And I need that extra motivation to take advantage of that privilege and get out of bed in the morning and do something good for the environment, and myself at the same time.

What are the future plans of Sādu?

I think anyone who downloads the app now will become the beta group of testers when we release the NFTs to initially get some feedback on how this process works. 

And so we’re looking to release them in early 2022, which we’re super excited about. And I think our next steps, obviously, to develop this internally, and soon we’re gonna have a final decision on like which chain we’ll be building on, for instance, and working with our devs, to make sure that we’re going down the right path and kind of at the same time as tackling all the complexities of the carbon market, also looking into more of the textbook technical complexities of Blockchain itself and how the information within these tokens is transferred and stored and remains valid, especially when it’s connected to a tree that has a survival rate of 30% to 40%. 

We’re tackling complexity, like, how do we continue to maintain that value of that credit with a tree that has such a low survival rate? Which treats do we pick? Where does the data get stored? We know what happens if the network goes down? Are those credits still available?

Encouraging to be more conscious about environment

I think it’s a matter of kind of flipping the mentality. I would say that this app is not necessarily even made for the hardcore environmentalists, who know exactly what to do, and how to tackle the climate crisis, but rather, for people who want to do something good for the environment, but don’t want to dedicate 100% of their time to it. So a quick solution for that. And then people who also see the financial value in investing into solutions that will become more valuable as the climate crisis gets worse. 

So not only through fitness, we can connect the sense of investing into health on an individual level, and turning those patterns into something that is good for the environment. And then through the NFTs, we can actually show that there’s a financial value in sequestering carbon by planting a tree and claiming a credit for that tree, and then selling that credit onto a market. Using an NFT to basically say, this data and this information has been captured. I’ve invested into it, I can now resell, and there’s a financial incentive as well to do something good for the environment. So really creating this almost like I don’t know, the switching the mentality from donation towards growth. And that kind of gets back to what I was saying earlier about this decoupling of economic growth from resource extraction. Essentially, we can consume more in the metaverse while at the same time investing more into either a nature based solution, carbon sequestration, or any sort of solution that has a positive environmental impact, and associate that option with digital assets in the metaverse to create an entire economy around that.

Effect of the digital ecosystem on our environment?

I know there’s a lot of pushback in towards the, in terms of the energy consumption of, let’s say, all mining operations. Yes, Proof-of-Work has a higher impact in Proof-of-Stake and there are some networks with an even lower environmental or energy consumption rate than Proof-of-Stake. And I think in terms of energy consumption, like the electrification of as many processes as possible has always kind of been a strong 

argument in favor of creating climate positive actions and policies. And the reason that has come into place is because humans have figured out how to create energy from renewable sources with zero to no forms of carbon emissions. 

So the more that we can use energy and electricity to power things, the more likely we are to reduce our emissions using knowing that that power comes from renewable resources. And so in my opinion, I think looking at the way mining operations continue to grow or let’s say even data centers and different projects that focus on how to provide these operations with a clean baseload renewable energy supply are like going to keep growing and therefore ensure that whatever I resources are consumed digitally do not have such a negative impact on the environment.

Revolutionary tech can help track our planet’s health

I think it’s important to understand energy consumption within the use of technology itself, and to be aware of the supply chain behind it.

But in terms of energy consumption, I know there are a couple of really good projects. I think Google has a pretty big focus as well on creating 100% or basically 24/7 carbon free energy for their data centers. So basically, looking at the operations that provide the energy to projects that obviously rely on whether we get up or mining operations and ensuring that those come from renewable energy sources is a way to at least tangibly within the supply chain, ensure that the environmental impact of say creation of a Metaverse is not so negative. 

I think another thing is the connection between virtual and, and physical reality. And whether or not that kind of jumping into a virtual reality is a distraction of a physical reality around us, and the ecosystem that we inhabit. And yes, it for sure can be a distraction. I think if you look into these dystopian sci-fi films, and we see not everyone living a peaceful, beautiful life in a virtual reality, and then they take their headsets off, and they’re this kind of gross and polluted world around them. And I think that’s a common mentality that many people share as a risk. But nonetheless, if there are different tools which can actually connect this positive environmental impact to this virtual reality, then it also opens up another avenue of creativity and shared resources and a shared economy in which we kind of flip the economics of consumption on its head and have a new reality to create.

What should our coming generation focus on?

As I mentioned, there’s still a ton of complexity that needs to be solved, especially if we’re looking into crypto. And specifically, relating to tree planting, if you want to set up a farm for someone who is in an area where they don’t have WiFi, what are the ways that we can then continue to verify that these trees are planted? Or what are some of the ways to actually work with different groups of individuals who are just, say, being integrated into a digital economy? And there’s a ton of opportunities. 

Also, one thing that gets me really excited is this concept of creating a new digital economy and personal identity like an eco conscious identity within the metaverse, how will that be expressed? When individuals are now either in virtual reality? Or in some area of augmented reality? What will that look like? Right now you can go buy a pair of Toms, or it’s a shoe company that has to buy one give one model. It is a very clear virtue signal. What will that transpose to as well? 

I think that’s like a fun area to work on in the future, or will be a fun area to work on in the future. And also, just because you’re talking about the carbon market, carbon credits, how do you measure carbon? You have a lot of scientists that are working on trying to figure out how much carbon is sequestered by a tree over its lifetime. And the better humans can get measuring how to sequester it and carbon, turn it into a unit that can then be bought and sold on the market. The more vibrant I think this economy will become. And we can use that actually as a method of currency itself as well. There’s a lot there’s a lot to do.

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Crypto ecosystem has faced several criticism over the last year, as mining operations required high energy usage. As we are facing more climatic changes globally, every individual should take measures to protect our planet. Simultaneously, Sādu is helping every individual to live a healthy lifestyle, while investing in nature to reduce carbon emission. Together with Sādu we can create a more green and sustainable future.

To know more about the blockchain and cryptocurrencies ecosystem, do check out our podcasts streaming from all the popular apps. To learn more, you can check out our community page.

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