TREEO solves three interrelated problems:

(1)  Gross undersupply of high-quality CDR on the market.

(2) At present it is prohibitively expensive for farmers to enter the carbon market, as a result they lack the incentives to unlock their carbon potential by reforesting degraded land.

(3) CDR buyers lack trust in nature-based CDR projects over concerns of insufficient monitoring and lack of transparency.

TREEO is unique because we bring together technology, carbon methodology, best practice agroforestry, and long-standing experience in forest landscape restoration.

Our technology focuses on the carbon equity of farmers explicitly. In the TREEO ecosystem, they become valuable asset holders. This is a group that most actors in the CDR ecosystem neglect, thereby missing out on the carbon potential of 500 million farmers worldwide. With TREEO, CDR becomes the  profitable and reasonable activity to perform on degraded lands.

Additionality is firmly rooted within TREEO. Currently, farmers lack incentives to use degraded areas in sustainable ways. Reforestation activities are not profitable per se. The only way to make these activities profitable in the long run and establish a sustainable business model for these areas, is through carbon finance: providing high-quality CDR from reforestation in exchange for pre-financing the activities.

In addition, the TREEO app has a land survey function, which allows users to register their land areas.This way, we can determine specific conditions like soil type, terrain, land ownership status, and prior land use. Therefore, TREEO can assess whether the land is eligible for a carbon financed reforestation project and verify the additionality of tree planting.

The CDRs we currently offer are valid for 10 years. Every grower that uses TREEO will be required to grow trees for 10 years and use our app as a monitoring tool at least once per year. Once the data has been verified, they receive the payout for the carbon removals they supplied. At the end of the 10-year period, the grower can choose to either keep growing trees and receive additional yearly carbon financing, or harvest and replant them.

We intend to utilise the timber construction and biochar pools as long-term carbon storage. This locks up the carbon for at least 50 years, and it provides deforestation-free and sustainable timber for the construction industry. Lots of the tree species we work with are capable of regermination (e.g. Sengon); the trees regrow on their own after the harvest without needing to plant more seedlings.

Natural risks that affect project sites, e.g. fires or floods, are mitigated with a risk buffer that retains 20% of the total revenue to cover over-planting operations and insurance contracts.

Fraudulent or improper use of TREEO technology e.g. measuring the same tree multiple times, using smaller reference cards (reference cards are used to measure the tree diameter at breast height with a smartphone camera) or using a fake GPS location app will be automatically detected by TREEO algorithms. TREEO combines multiple data sources, previous measurements, historical performance of tree growth, data and satellite imagery from nearby areas to identify mistakes or fraud. TREEO employs local field coordinators to visit and check areas that were flagged by algorithms. This could happen due to fraud or over/underperformance of tree growth in specific areas. The findings from field coordinators will be used to improve the algorithms.

TREEO will publish verified data in an open project registry that will allow the scientific community to independently review project quality. We are planning to utilise blockchain technology for the project registry. Whether we will build our own TREEO registry or partner with an existing carbon registry is yet undecided.

TREEO caters to a two-sided market. We connect companies with net-zero targets (CDR buyers) with tree planting partners and farmers (CDR suppliers).

Companies pay a fixed price per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). This is currently priced at €30, however, this will likely increase in the future. At present, we plan to establish a pricing corridor i.e. a minimum price and a maximum price. This flexibility will ensure price differences due to planting context. No other actor is charged—farmers and tree planting partners use TREEO for free.

The payout structure is as follows:

• Risk buffer: 20%
• Tree planting partners: 30%
• Farmers: 30%
• TREEO revenue: 20%

TREEO finalises a contract with the CDR buyer for a certain amount of CDR. Buyers pay 50% of the total amount up front (€15 for 1 tCO2e), which TREEO distributes to the farmers and TPPs. This pre-financing is necessary to help cover the farmers’ upfront costs and the tree planting partners. Both the farmers and the TPPs have the highest expenses in the first year of a CDR project: farmers have to prepare their land and TPPs must recruit and register farmers, organise farmer field schools, provide all infrastructure and equipment, and grow and deliver seedlings.

The grower simply holds up their TREEO reference card to the tree and takes a photo using their smartphone. Based on this data, the tree scanner is able to work out the DBH.

The tree scanner calculates a tree’s diameter (DBH) using computer vision and image analysis algorithms. Our measurement accuracy is 94%.

So far we have successfully scanned and measured 17,069 trees.

TREEO uses satellite data to cross-check data collected on the ground by farmers using the mobile app, we do not use it to measure carbon dioxide. The satellite data provides independent verification that the tree cover corresponds with ground data.

We have tested different approaches using publicly available satellite data (Sentinel-2 dataset). QGIS and Google Earth Engine were used to detect the change of tree cover for selected areas. Our next step is to explore additional data sources, including paid satellite imagery and automate the process. We are also looking for partnerships that will speed up this process.