%20-%20no%20padding%20(1).png)
Who We Are
Greenfi.org is a social enterprise which seeks to catalyse the formation and growth of eco-credit groups. We are an inter-disciplinary team of ecological, community conservation and finance experts. The community eco-credit approach was developed with support from Ecosystem Equity , Mwambao-MCCC, FFI and with third party funding from the United Nations Development Program & Morgan Stanley UFJ Prize for Climate Change Finance Innovation, the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, a ClimateKIC award, a SwissRe ReSource prize, a Conservation Finance Alliance prize, a Mastercard Zambezi innovation prize and a Blue Ventures grant.
Our History
Greenfi's initial insight was that credit terms which include requirements for protection and restoration of nature in credit offered by small community-owned credit cooperatives offer a route to more sustainable use of natural resources. We hypothesised that by developing and making available a toolkit and advice, we could help NGOs, companies and government agencies to set-up community-owned green credit cooperatives which we call eco-credit groups. Certain preliminary assumptions in the model show some validation, and we continue to assess the model for delivery of its long term aims.
2018
Set-Up
Following the development of an initial hypothesis and basic tools, Greenfi was incorporated in Ireland and conducted an initial feasibility assessment in Pemba, Tanzania in partnership with Mwambao Coastal Communities Network. Subsequently, we set-up five eco-credit groups to test initial assumptions around eco-credit group formation and management with funding from ClimateKIC.
2021
Design of Scale-Up Model
With support from the Conservation Finance Alliance, we identified a workable scale-up model for Greenfi.org. We explored various funding models, including software-as-a-service provision, and a cooperative model. We further initiated pilots in new agricultural and coastal landscapes and further developed our digital recording tools. We continue to watch performance of the tool to assess assumptions around its efficacy.
2022
Scale-Up
Having identified a low cost partnership model to help third party project developers such as NGOs establish eco-credit groups in the communities which they support, we began to explore our core objective of catalysing formation of eco-credit groups by supporting third party organisations to train and empower communities to set up eco-credit groups. Given the long term nature of the work, we are still assessing performance of the tool.
Our Partners
The Greenfi.org community eco-credit tools have been developed in partnership with the following organisations.
