CarbonEthics Project Tumbuh

My name is Innandya Irawan, a natural forerunner with a desire to shake the status quo. I am at my best when my work correlates with the pursuit of driving positive change. Starting my career as a Commercial Professional in the energy industry, I have a proven track record of eight years in Hydrocarbon economic/analysis. I moved to Transformation and am now bp’s Asia-Pacific Transformation Lead, my job includes developing a faster response towards the increasing rates of change impacting the energy industry. I am also one of the Co-Founders of CarbonEthics (CE), an NGO whose mission is to “demystify the climate crisis to inspire and enable climate action”. The combination of my passion and past experiences has now placed me in the perfect triangle between Commercial, Transformation and Low Carbon. A key which I believe can one day solve the problems of today.

Project Tumbuh focuses on the efforts to expand CE’s socio-economic impacts by conserving and restoring the Blue Carbon ecosystem. The project will focus on helping mangrove farmers and coastal communities securing an international carbon credit certification for a community-based blue carbon ecosystem conservation. Not only accelerating impact, the project will also mainstreamize the conversation about climate change. CE has and will continue to collaborate with the local government, local mangrove farmers and ocean-focused communities to provide education for the local communities. By aiming to plant a minimum of 30k trees/year, we believe this project will provide a sustainable alternative income to the coastal community, even despite a pandemic. From the funding, we have also conducted several sustainable activities on the island including (but not limited to) ecotourism, while aiming to save the corals from destruction.

Climate change is a critically detrimental issue. Due to its extreme effects, small islands (among others) are highly vulnerable to hardship as a result of rising sea levels and extreme weather phenomena. These changes have disrupted the lives of over 23,000 people residing within the Thousand Islands National Park, threatening their very well-being through putting housing, infrastructure, and community income in peril. Furthermore, homestay development in the area has expanded due to increasing population growth and high interests on tourism, resulting in land degradation due to mass usage of groundwater. Not only has the issue trickled down to harm local community livelihoods that depend on coastal resources, but it has also harmed the coastal ecosystems of mangrove trees, seagrasses, and coral reefs. In consequence, economically unstable local communities tend to sacrifice the environment without considering its implications. Which is why education regarding blue carbon conservation and income alternatives are essential towards sustainable development. Not to mention how the pandemic has hugely impacted the local community income; affecting 66.7% of the fish trading business, 85.7% of aquaculture, up to 96.4% of local tourism guides, 88.2% of the catering business, and 100% in the accommodation sector. 

With our project, we aim to extensively help the residents of Thousand Islands. Through Plan Vivo certification and (if possible) the Domestic Carbon Market, we aim to provide long-term income to its residents as the generation of carbon credit through the conservation and restoration of mangrove could make an important contribution to poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation in the area. When the communities start selling carbon credits, they are expected to benefit directly from a revenue flow which is expected to improve the livelihood of the local community. To achieve said goals, we are collaborating with Thousand Islands National Park (under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in Indonesia) and farmers to plant over 30,000 mangroves, 9,600 seagrass, and 252 coral polyp per year in Harapan, Kelapa, and Pramuka Island. In social aspects, we are also aiding the local communities in adapting and mitigating the impacts of climate change through community development regarding blue carbon conservation, blue carbon conservation campaign, carbon ecotourism, climate change education, and monitoring climate indicators.

Blue carbon conservation aside, we also aim to positively impact other aspects. Among other things, we are also driven to create positive impacts on the livelihood of our community through improving natural, human, financial, physical and social capital of the coastal community. While we will be positively impacting our local farmers by creating job opportunities and increasing their income with blue carbon conservation, we will also be developing the local ecotourism by creating a low carbon tourism destination within the area by training local tourism businesses in adapting low carbon principles that are assuredly set to generate more sustainable income in the long run. Furthermore, in order to understand the needs of our community comprehensively, we will be conducting a research based on both primary and secondary data. By adapting the concept of community-based participatory research, this will allow for the concerns of the community to be captured and heard by the community, for the community. Moreover, this approach will also help strengthen our relationship with the community and ensure effective engagement in order to avoid any potential interferences to our project.

Our project dimension is to elevate issues by building awareness and driving action to solve them. To achieve this, we work as a mediator to distribute funding to those in need while implementing capital allocation and increase social resilience in the Thousand Islands. Indonesia does not include blue carbon ecosystems in the country’s NDC in the mitigation or adaptation strategies against the climate crisis, albeit ironically Indonesia holds the largest blue carbon stocks in the world. These are among the reasons why we want to advocate for blue carbon by pushing for restoration and conservation.

Bimo, Jessica and I met in the 2018 One Young World. While discussing, we were all convinced that we must be the ones to make the discourse on climate solutions mainstream. With Bimo’s sales experience and Jessica’s connection to the local mangrove farmers, our combined knowledge on the field would eventually lead to the founding of CE. Afterwards, would lead to the creation of the carbon calculator, educational content on carbon in social media, and a product series that plants trees with every tumbler purchase. While visiting the local mangrove farmers in the Thousand Islands, we realized that the local community needs a sustainable alternative income. As we continued to inspect-adapt-iterate our products and interaction,  eventually we realised that CE was the first Indonesian NGO that genuinely cares about decreasing carbon emission. This narrative caught big institutions’ attention like KFC, Nike and World Resources Institute. Fifteen months in, we have sequestered ca. 770 tons of CO2e, planted 12k trees, gave additional income to ca. 17 farmers and joined by more than 50 volunteers. The numbers continue to grow in a positive direction and we cannot be happier that we started the conversation.

Being born and raised in Jakarta, this city has sunk 2.5m in the last 10 years. This dramatic rate has increased due to Arctic melting and excessive extraction of groundwater causing abnormal surges. Due to wide unavailability of piped water, people have no choice but to resort to pumping water from the aquifers. Concurrently, the fishing communities on the northern coast of Jakarta live a precarious existence, as they are threatened by the increasing pressure of marine stocks. This pressure came not only from overfishing - driven by external markets for commercial seafood export and rising population but also from the deterioration of coral reefs and mangrove ecosystems, two critical habitats for shrimp, crab and other maritime species’. These are the reasons that shaped CE’s main social impact goals. CE realized that carbon financing is an alternative that can help the coastal communities, while also tackling socio-economic and biodiversity issues in the area all at once. Not only doing this project makes us sleep better at night, but we’re also hopeful that this project will provide alternative income to the local mangrove farmers and mitigate the impact of climate change that’s impacting the area.

To deliver and solve the said quest, I identify this person as a purpose-driven leader, possessing a tested grit and transformational experience, sound commercial sense and steadfast diplomatic aptitudes. I will try to weave in a combination of my experience in bp and CE to demonstrate my unique capabilities. Being in bp for almost a decade and over, I have been knocking barriers from the inside to be more carbon conscious. In 2018, I proposed to the Jakarta office in abandoning single-use plastics. Albeit several internal conflicts, it was finally approved and executed consistently. In 2019, I launched a project called Low Carbon Culture, to help mainstream the carbon conversation in bp offices and equipping them with a low carbon toolkit for conversation/games on low carbon. This project landed me as one of bp’s Low Carbon pioneers. Now, I am well-versed with hydrocarbon economics and fully understand the difficulties and complexities in making low carbon business economically competitive, therefore CE strongly supports collaborations with individuals and institutions to enhance discussions and engage in solutions. As Transformation Lead, I am well-rounded in designing and delivering transformational initiatives while simultaneously inspiring people through a compelling case for change. In reality, blue carbon regulation in Indonesia is not straightforward to navigate, despite its big potential. However, my experience in creating strategic alliances with the government gave me the confidence to navigate the issue. CE is convinced that Project Tumbuh is a compelling case for change that will elevate humanity for the better.

In 2019, we received an order from the World Resources Institute (WRI) to plant trees. When we offered our mangrove proposition, they had 2 problems: Mangrove does not have a big PR value as Jakartans need 2 hours boat ride to access the location and CE’s price per tree was more expensive than other NGOs. After further analysis, we understood that our competitor was doing quantity planting. While planting trees, they would neglect survival rates nor provide farmers with a fair margin. Whereas, CE’s quality planting approach is inclusive of biodegradable polybag, maintenance up to 3 years and a 97% survival guarantee rate – all for $0.7/tree. Moreover, we also scientifically back up our argument that mangroves absorb 10x more carbon than terrestrial trees. We asked WRI to come to the island to self-experience mangroves planting, combined with an educational (environmental) game and a pleasant lunch by the sea. Long story short, we secured the deal. WRI became one of our loyal customers and supporters. In this instance, we learnt that the glass is always half full. Perspective is something subjective, and with the right intention, approach, strategy and execution we can transform obstacles into opportunity.

Pursuing positive change has always been my North Star. I coined the idea of “Low Carbon Culture” (LCC) after the 2018 OYW. It’s a program that helps BP offices worldwide to engage in a healthy competition to decrease emission. I personally networked the idea internally and had it approved by convincing the BP Director of Workplace Modernisation. I also presented that the demand exists as employees are keen to help. At the end of the presentation, I knew I had won his heart when he asked if he can be the Project’s sponsor. Next up, I had to convince the Heads of Countries. I needed to win their minds with well-articulated positioning in favour of LCC. I convincingly presented my case and I got the approval for 7 offices instead of our initial target of 5. One year later, the project landed me as one of bp’s Low Carbon Pioneers for the low carbon conversation and lifestyle that we helped to provoke around the office - which was beyond my expectation. This project taught me that the ability to draw one’s thoughts and get them out there is a powerful method to capture the hearts and minds of others.

Our innovations are opening up possibilities for Indonesian people to be involved in Blue Carbon Conservation right from their homes. To put it in perspective, many might be interested in supporting the Conservation and yet have so many questions such as; How to do it?  Where to do it? Are they even doing it the right way? and many others. With the digital platform that CE has created, people can now easily support the Blue Carbon Conservation right from their mobile phones at home. For instance, they can simply adopt coral polyps through the CarbonEthics website and our team will connect them to the farmers that manage the end-to-end process starting from the execution until the monitoring.  People can see in their monitoring page once the coral is planted and track the growth regularly. 

Our innovation also helps the coastal community farmers in securing income when their main resources of livelihood have significantly decreased, as such has happened during this pandemic. It is because of the innovation in this conservation that transactions can be done virtually even when the islands are closed that the farmers can still receive a steady flow of income. It’s a win-win situation for the coastal communities farmers, the conservation supporters, the earth, the ocean and Indonesia as the country that should play an integral role to help the world decelerating climate crisis through its high potential of blue carbon sequestration.

Currently, our project serves the livelihoods of 17 farmer households (nearing 68 people) residing in 4 coastal sites. This figure has grown exponentially considering that last year there were only 6 farmer households in 1 site. By the end of this year, we aim to add one more coastal site to reach 25 farmers' households in total. Each year we aim to add 5 coastal sites, therefore by the end of the 5th year we aim to reach 125 farmer households (approx. 500 people) across all coastal sites in Indonesia that are severely impacted by climate change or human destruction. 

Mangrove, seagrass, and coral farmers are directly impacted by the Blue Carbon plantation. Blue Carbon-derivative products are engineered to empower women into leadership positions aided by social business and their involvement in order to gain additional resources of income. As for the children of farmer families, they will be engaged in carbon/climate education and practical experiences to plant blue carbon. We will also be influencing local governments to insert blue carbon curriculum into the education system of the islands. This way, this project will have positive economical, social and ecological impacts to the local community.

The barriers that are currently in the way of us accomplishing our goals are as follows. The first one is policies and regulations regarding blue carbon utilization. The absence of clear regulations related to the utilization rights of blue carbon in Indonesia is the main obstacle for us to implement domestic/international carbon trading. We understand that the government will launch the regulation fairly soon and therefore when the regulation is out, we want to be in a position where we are ready to comply with it. Secondly, land tenure and the complexity of partnership: the destructive coastal areas in Indonesia are mostly owned by the government. Albeit not impossible, it often can be arduous and bureaucratic for an NGO to get the license to do long term conservation and restoration activities. Last but not least, sufficient project funding. For us to conserve and restore the mangrove, seagrass and seedling will require a large capital upfront. Especially now that we are racing against time due to the climate crisis - we want to plant as many and as early as possible. Moreover, our aim to register this project for Plan ViVo certification also means that we need to do carbon stock verification that is audited by a third party verifier to ensure that the mangroves that we plant have the carbon stock that we claimed. All of these combined activities will require a large amount of capital upfront that we need to secure.

To overcome unclear policies and regulations regarding blue carbon utilization, we have several plans on the pipeline. We are already mapping our current external stakeholders, policies and regulation and created engagement strategy from this mapping. We will also be conducting a blue carbon stakeholder meeting by collaborating with the Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs in Indonesia. By curating the stakeholder meeting, we will be able to connect with the influential actors and stakeholders with the same interests in blue carbon and potentially influence the shaping of future blue carbon policies. Additionally, we are planning to publish some articles in reputable local publications to help us advocate towards blue carbon conservation in Indonesia. Furthermore, to overcome land tenure and the complexity of partnership CE will begin to collaborate and draft the MoU with the local government as opposed with the central. By collaborating with the local government, the regulation over land ownership will be accessible as they will have their own autonomy thus absolving the need for approval from the central government, so long as the program aligns with the central government. To overcome the sufficient project funding hurdles, CE has developed several strategies in selling our blue carbon products. Our Blue Carbon Program on (Mangrove,Seagrass, and Coral) as well as our Blue Carbon derivative products (Batik Mangrove). However in order for us to expand our impacts quicker due to the urgency of climate change, we need the support from organisations that can provide us with donations or grants.

Amongst others, CE has several loyal partners such as WRI, Seastainable.co (based in Singapore), Nike Invincible, One Young World and UNICEF.

CE has a joint campaign with WRI to promote tree planting, where it has now reached 2,962 people (https://kitabisa.com/campaign/...). 

Seastainable.co has helped us by offsetting their carbon footprint through donations that directly goes to our farmers and encouraging their customers to offset their carbon with us. With this collaboration, we are able to reach the international market and expand our impact and reach. Furthermore, KFC has also offset their carbon footprint via CarbonEthics. Another form of partnership was with NIKE Invincible that donated to us by buying some blue carbon packages during the new shoes campaign such as Nike Air Max and Nike Space Hippie. We are also collaborating with UNICEF to collaborate on a U-Report. In this collaboration for every U-Reporter by CE, UNICEF will plant 1 mangrove tree. One Young World (OYW) also has been one of our supportive partner from the start, our Social Return of Investment (SROI) ratio is 1:3 (per the calculations by OYW) and was published in One Young World Impact Report 2019 (https://www.oneyoungworld.com/...; p.162). 

With these campaigns and collaboration, our farmers are able to obtain sustainable income through the blue carbon conservation and our customers get a platform where they can donate and plant trees easily and offset their carbon footprint.

CarbonEthics is giving added value for farmers and their families. Our main method of doing this is by providing social, ecological, and economic impacts to the coastal communities. 

Social impact is seen by creating a climate-resilient society within coastal communities through education and skill building. Which in turn harnesses the benefits of blue carbon conservation and its derivative products thus obtaining the ownership over the protection of their islands and families. Ecological impact is manifested by protecting the local community’s home from coastal erosion, as well as carbon sequestration. 

Economic impact can be seen by the funds we have invested for farmers to plant mangroves, seagrasses and coral. Another multiplier effect for economic impact is when the mangrove crab and fishes’ stocks are returning to the blue carbon ecosystem near the fisherman and farmers home as a result of our initiatives.

The farmers need this as the climate crisis has already affected the ecological landscape such as sea level rise and severe ocean waves that wipes the coastal infrastructure (this is happening recently in Pramuka and Harapan Island, two of our coastal sites) 

How we did it: We engage Indonesian youth in urban areas to crowd fund the blue carbon planting while offsetting their carbon footprint. From the fund raised, we engage the local farmers to plant mangrove, seagrass, and coral in their own home island. We also educate the farmers about climate resilience and skill building so that they can have additional income from blue carbon conservation.

CarbonEthics is aspiring to be financially sustainable with/without the support of external funding. Currently, we are selling our carbon offset products (Blue Carbon Program – Mangrove/Seagrass and Coral) and Blue Carbon derived products (Batik Mangrove), to which we are taking a margin of at least 40% to cover our organisation's operational expenses. We are also ensuring that the margin for our farmers is above the current market rate. However, we still need support from funding bodies such as Donation and Grants to scale up our impacts. This money will be used for mangrove tree planting and maintenance as it grows for 20 years to accumulate carbon stock reservoirs. In parallel to that, we can sell the forecasted carbon credit to the Voluntary Carbon Market where the funds raised from carbon trading will be invested back to plant more trees and community development programs. Investment capital will be our 3rd option as delivering the equity-based partnership requires the proper capacity of the whole organization. The fund raised from this channel will be used for commercial scale-up (Product Development, Business to Business Partnership, Marketing, Technology, and Talent Investment).

At the moment, CarbonEthics has yet to receive any support from external funding bodies. However, we have sustained and expanded the impact. The following are the sources of our Blue Carbon Offset sales for the past 12 months:

• End Consumer Purchase: USD 7,893 (individual purchase)

• E-commerce – Seastainable.co: USD 3,322 (Blue Carbon purchase) - Since November 2019

• Corporate – Nike Invincible: USD 1,390 (Blue Carbon purchase) - Since April 2020

• NGO – World Resource Institute: USD 649 (Blue Carbon purchase) - Since November 2019

• Corporate – KFC United States: USD 543 (Blue Carbon purchase) - December 2019

• Other institutions: USD 795 (Blue Carbon purchase)

As we are still an NGO, we focus on looking for grants/sponsors instead of venture capital. We want to use the funds for investing in creating carbon reservoirs by planting more mangroves.

Each month, we receive a healthy stream of revenue from our Blue Carbon Package sales be it from customers’ personal contribution or from institutions and partners. As an NGO, we are purposefully trying to keep our operational expenses to a minimum and channel most of our revenue in the effort that supports the planting of mangrove, seagrass, coral and the associated operational cost (transport to the island, biodegradable poly bags, monitoring and reporting, personnel salary and social activities in the island). We are purposefully keeping our organisation Digital based with no physical office. To enable the interaction and collaboration within the organisation we are equipping our staff and volunteers with the proper digital ecosystem. This strategy is proven effective as we are currently financially self-sufficient without grants. 

However, triggered by the urgency of the climate crisis, we do plan to grow, hence we made the Project Tumbuh plan. For this project we need an additional funding of $99,481 that we’re hoping to spend in the next 2 years (details will be covered in the next question). Based on our timeline, expenses will start to occur in September 2020. Depending on our successes of securing a grant or not, we may be evaluating the contribution from impact investors in the future to help us achieve our goals, but that may also mean having to change our legal entity as Social Enterprise. At this point, we are trying to steer away from borrowing funds from third-party financial providers.

One of our main barriers is project funding. By getting funds from the Elevate Prize, we will be able to remove this barrier. Bearing in mind that our project aim is to plant mangroves, seagrasses, and corals for 20 years which also included ecological and social programs. In the ecological program, we aim to plant and monitor 30,000 mangrove trees, 9,600 seagrass, and 252 corals (per year) for 20 years that are at a cost of approximately $364,075. From our social program; the blue carbon conservation campaign, carbon ecotourism, climate change education, and monitoring climate indicators are at a cost of approximately $118,494. With the support of the Elevate Prize funding we will be able to support this aim and contribute to the fight against climate change by sequestering 40,000tons of CO2e in the next 20 years.

Through the Elevate network, CE hopes to get access to mentors that are experienced in international carbon trading regulation. We are hopeful that Elevate will provide access for CE staff and members to get access for capacity building that can help to gain diplomatic skills that will help to build strategic alliances to allow CE to expand our impacts nation-wide. Finally, with the aim to demystify the importance of carbon offsetting to help reduce the climate change impact - we are hopeful that the Elevate media exposure will help us to educate people from different walks of life and generations, including institutions

Elaborately speaking, here are the partnership goals that we are aiming for:

1. Carbon Education partnership: We would like to collaborate with organisations that have valued quality education and climate literacy as an important milestone to be achieved. Also have both the talent and financial resources to make it happen.

2. Carbon Reduction partnership: We would like to collaborate with organisations that aim for a low carbon future by taking steps to reduce carbon consumption in their value chain and employee engagement. Upon request, we are willing and able to help and consult an organisation in calculating their carbon emissions as well as co-creating the steps in reducing them.

3. Carbon Offsetting partnership: After an organisation is aware of climate literacy and carbon reduction, we would be happy to help the said organisation to be carbon neutral by planting with us through our Blue Carbon Conservation initiatives.

The potential partners we have in mind are as follows:

1. Government of Indonesia. We need to collaborate with multi-stakeholders in the government: from Local to Central Government and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. We need to get insider insight of Blue Carbon regulation, carbon rights for Blue Carbon Ecosystem, and domestic carbon trading through proper advocacy, considering that without proper regulation, we cannot scale up to reach Voluntary Carbon Market and exponentially impact the livelihood of coastal communities.

2. Carbon Offset Certifier and Auditor. We need to collaborate with certifiers such as Plan Vivo (the one that we are pursuing) to validate and audit the quality of our carbon stocks. When we are certified, our credibility will be irrefutable and more trusted by future partners.

Private Sectors. The three focuses for corporate partnership; Climate Education, Carbon Reduction, and Carbon Offset. We need to partner with private companies that can support Climate Education to get through with more youth in Indonesia on Climate issues and encourage them to commit to a low carbon lifestyle. We also need to engage corporations on coastal community development to create a climate-resilient society and skill-building that can harness the benefit of blue carbon conservation. We need to partner with companies that are enthusiastic about low carbon futures by helping them calculate their carbon footprint and co-create ways to reduce it. After reducing, they can offset the remaining footprint by investing in one of the many Blue Carbon Conservation initiatives that we have here in CarbonEthics.