A World Re-Imagined With Web3: Getting Paid to Walk More, Emit Less, and Remove The Rest
Written by Alexsandra Guerra, Nori Co-Founder and Director of Corporate Development
STEP’N, a Web3 move-to-earn app, is partnering with Nori to combat climate change and achieve carbon-neutrality, starting with a purchase of 5,797.1 Nori Carbon Removal Tonnes (NRTs). STEP’N will continue to power the movement to reverse climate change with a monthly commitment of $100,000 or $1.2M annually, to pay for carbon removal via Nori’s marketplace.
Imagine a world where people are out and about in their neighborhoods, walking to and from work, through the parks, allowing for the serendipity of connecting with someone in their community. The local air quality improves and the climate takes a break because less driving means fewer CO2 emissions. A community of happy, healthy, and inspired individuals takes seed. That’s the scene that I imagined today as I tracked my walk through Miami using the STEP’N app to earn crypto (STEP’N’s GST and GMT have just been listed on Coinbase and Gemini). This new move-to-earn app enables users to get paid for walking, jogging, or running, so long as they are connected to GPS and moving outside.
STEP’N’s stated mission is to inspire millions to a healthier lifestyle, connect them to web3, and combat climate change. To address their climate goals, STEP’N has made an ongoing commitment to use a portion of their profits to purchase NRTs on the blockchain via Nori. Anyone can track the progress of these purchases at https://nori.com/stepn.
As a co-founder of a crypto-native company, you would think that I know all there is to know about crypto. But in fact, when we recently had to set-up wallets for the soon-to-launch NORI token, I was one of the last to figure it out. So, when I wanted to start earning crypto for my daily walk using STEP’N, it took a couple of reads through STEP’N’s litepaper and a closer look at their How To Play Guide. Soon enough, with some Coinbase payments and a basic understanding of what address to send SOL to, it was fairly easy for me to get set-up in the STEP’N app with an NFT sneaker that I could then use to earn crypto (GST) as I walked (or ran, if I felt so inclined).
I first heard of STEP’N when our always-ready-to-help investors, M13, connected us to Yawn Rong, CEO and co-founder of STEP’N, in late 2021. Yawn told us of their ambition to build a web3 platform to get people living healthier lifestyles by enabling people to earn crypto while exercising AND address climate change as a core part of their mission. Being who I am, I had no problem seeing that as a possibility.
However, when Yawn informed us that they wanted to partner with Nori to do a recurring purchase $100,000 of carbon removal every month, I was both surprised and incredibly excited. To understand the significance of this, one must consider two things: 1) the price of NRTs — $17.25 per NRT total at the time — means that this young startup (less than a year old) would be putting over $1.2M dollars annually to uphold their commitment to reversing climate change, and 2) the total amount of NRTs that Nori had sold by that point was around 75,000, which means that this new partnership would drastically increase the demand for NRTs in Nori’s carbon removal marketplace. For some context on this, a public record of our sales history is available at https://nori.com/registry.
My elation after speaking with STEP’N’s team was because with this kind of commitment, STEP’N would become our largest recurring customer. At Nori, we’ve worked with many organizations, artists, and entertainers to address carbon impacts, including but not limited to:
- Shopify | 5,000 NRTs to negate emissions from Black Friday and Cyber Monday shipments
- The Sandbox | ~4,500 NRTs and growing with monthly carbon removal purchases to address the emissions of due to the NFT transactions in their Metaverse game
- Rarible | ~1,200 NRTs and growing with daily transactions coming through via the Nori integration
- Artists like Grammy Award winning singer and song-writer Imogen Heap, and more.
Typical activity in the offsets industry is for large corporations to fund and purchase all the available “supply” (available carbon offsets) of carbon projects. These can be on the scale of hundreds of thousands to over a million tonnes. And given that nature-based carbon removal projects take so much time and funding in order to get going, it’s no surprise that smaller companies like tech startups haven’t really had the option or opportunity to partake in purchasing carbon removal “offsets”, or “removals,” in Nori’s case. It’s hard for small or even medium-size organizations, startups like STEP‘N to compete. Nori is doing something very new by providing access to carbon removal purchases on the scale (from 1 tonne to thousands of tonnes) that startups like STEP’N and The Sandbox need but wouldn’t get access to otherwise. Without Nori, they’d have to either compete with large corporations for the projects or create and resource their own internal team to fund and develop carbon removal projects.
Nori is unique from other carbon offset programs in that we provide trackable project pages tied to the certificate proof of purchase— take STEP’N’s first certificate, for example. This means Yawn (and all their users!) can always view the list of purchases STEP’N made to see who, when, and how much they paid for in carbon removal. And because Nori updates project pages as suppliers continuously provide data and get periodic third-party verification (no more than 3 years apart), Yawn and his team can also keep track of the project to see whether or not it is in good standing. And now that the demand for carbon projects has boomed — with large corporations making decades long commitments to fund projects valuing almost $1B — Nori will continue to maintain its commitment to our partners by providing them first access to new carbon removal supply as it comes available.
This is what we’re doing with our partnership with STEP’N. Nori’s currently issued NRTs are sold-out. We have a large pipeline of projects currently in the last stage of verification. We also expect to bring on hundreds of thousands of NRTs from a large project by the end of year. Until these projects and carbon removal services are enrolled, verified by third parties, and issued, Nori is taking commitments for orders of new supply as they become available. In partnering with STEP’N, Nori will give STEP’N first access to the newest available supply of NRTs as they come online.
In the few months since we first e-met with the STEP’N team in late 2021, their app has launched, their token has listed on Coinbase, and the STEP’N team has grown from 15 to over 50 employees. As a fellow founder and entrepreneur with a company going through a similar hiring sprint, I’m in awe and admiration of what the team has done so far. It’s been a pleasure to work with them and I’m excited to see where we can innovate next. In the meantime, I’ll be walking more, driving less, keeping track of my walks on STEP’N, earning GST, and reducing my carbon emissions.
More on Nori and STEPN:
Nori is a blockchain-backed Carbon Removal Marketplace that connects real-world carbon removal suppliers to climate-forward companies and individuals seeking to negate their carbon footprint. Currently, Nori sources carbon removals by working with regenerative farmers who are sequestering and storing carbon dioxide in their soils. Each carbon removal tonne purchased incentivizes more farmers to adopt climate-smart practices that restore Earth’s soils. Over the past four years, Nori farmers have been paid over $1.3M to remove over 85,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Nori and STEP’N are mission-aligned in their goal of pioneering a climate-positive Web3 space. Both companies believe that the technology and community power behind Web3 can be used to generate real world benefits, from healthier daily lifestyles to solving one of the most challenging problems of our time — reversing climate change.
“At STEPN, we whole-heartedly believe in harnessing the power of blockchain, Game-Fi and Social-Fi for the betterment of global health and sustainability. Working with Nori will allow us to lead the charge and be the change we want to see in our world”
- Yawn Rong, Cofounder of STEPN
“We want to enable our users to each feel a sense of ownership towards this initiative. As the world pivots to making greener choices, we believe this is the first of many steps towards sustaining a conducive planet for future generations”
- Jerry Huang, Cofounder of STEPN
Read STEPN’s partnership post.
Nori is powering the movement to reverse climate change via transparent, verifiable carbon removal. Since the company’s founding in 2017, we have worked hard to create a scalable two-sided marketplace that connects vetted carbon removal suppliers to carbon removal purchasers. Now, we’re gearing up to launch the NORI token to create universal price discovery around carbon removal. To learn more about Nori, check out nori.com/token.
