A marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of the world's first carbon removal credit.
Full-Service Design
Sustainability / Climate Tech
2 years 8 months
Full-Service Design
Sustainability / Climate Tech
2 years 8 months
Purchase CRCs
Purchase CRCs
Purchase CRCs
Overview
Overview
As Nori’s principal product designer, I was tasked with concepting the experience of using a two-sided marketplace that would connect buyers and sellers of carbon removal credits (CRCs).
As Nori’s principal product designer, I was tasked with concepting the experience of using a two-sided marketplace that would connect buyers and sellers of carbon removal credits (CRCs).
Team
Team
I worked as part of a five person product team including three engineers and a head of product. The product team interfaced directly with Nori's eight original founders. As the principal product designer, I worked directly under Nori's Head of Product and was responsible for all UX/UI, requirements gathering, user interviews, prototyping and testing.
The Nori Carbon Removal Tonne (NRT) was the world’s first carbon removal credit (CRC) which represented 1 tonne of carbon dioxide removed from our atmosphere. Nori CRCs were very different from the traditional carbon offsetting initiatives that came before. The key difference being that a purchased CRC was paying for actual carbon removal, not the reduction of emissions which was the traditional approach for companies working towards a carbon neutral status.
Nori’s strategy was to develop distinct methodologies that would create an entirely new kind of marketplace where different industries could actually make money from the act of removing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.
The first methodology was soil-carbon sequestration, which involved incentivizing farmers to adopt agriculture practices that would keep more carbon stored in farming soil.
Supplier enrollment
Nori wasn't just a market for buying and selling CRCs, it was a full-service platform that standardized relationships between buyers, suppliers, and verifiers of this new carbon removal commodity.
Nori wasn't just a market for buying and selling CRCs, it was a full-service platform that standardized relationships between buyers, suppliers, and verifiers of this new carbon removal commodity.
Getting suppliers on board
Pitching a new cash crop that would outweigh the cost of changing farming practices.
While many farmers would like to change their farming practices and become better stewards of the land, the reality is that a farmer's bottom line comes first. There are always additional expenses when switching land management practices and the uncertainty of doing something they've never done before.
If Nori was going to convince farmers to sign up as suppliers of CRCs, they needed to provide an estimation for the farmer of their return on investment.
Nori strategically partnered with COMET Farm, a USDA-backed greenhouse gas assessment tool that had already enrolled farmers interested in emissions reductions. This allowed Nori to run CRC estimation reports via an API using the farmers’ field boundaries and proposed practice changes.
It was my job to design an onboarding workflow for prospective suppliers that would quickly help farmers see the upside potential of becoming a Nori supplier while also walking them through the necessary steps of enrolling in the Nori marketplace
Project setup
Goal: Import records and provide an accurate payout estimate as fast as possible.
Verification
While Nori was responsible for maintaining the marketplace, we could not be involved in the verification process for farmer projects if the marketplace was going to appear legitimate and unbiased. That being said, we still needed to develop some kind of standard that would ensure the same level of integrity for all Nori suppliers.
While Nori was responsible for maintaining the marketplace, we could not be involved in the verification process for farmer projects if the marketplace was going to appear legitimate and unbiased. That being said, we still needed to develop some kind of standard that would ensure the same level of integrity for all Nori suppliers.
Standardizing verification without introducing bias
Nori needed to set clear boundaries without being seen as bad actors and undermine the integrity of Nori CRCs.
After many calls with the experts at Astra Global we started to focus our protocol around the general approach outlined by the International Organization for Standardization, which is a global organization that defines standards for trusted goods and services. This decision was made after talking with a few other carbon market verifiers who all claimed that their base inspection guidelines and reporting was an extension of the guidelines presented by ISO.
The goal was to come up with a very high-level set of guidelines based on these international standards that would allow verifiers to conduct their work largely uninfluenced by Nori while making sure there was a shared perspective and buy-in from both Nori and Verifiers on exactly what the outcome of verification should look like.
Working with Astra Global, we co-authored a simple, single page form where a verifier’s rating could be one of the following:
Approved: Initial tokens released + annual % unlocked
Approved with comments: Minor corrections or missing details would be forgiven one time only. No release of new tokens until issues are resolved.
Rejected: No new tokens would be released and any existing CRC listings would be pulled from the market. Buyers of this suppliers CRCs would be reimbursed directly by Nori.
Working with Astra Global, we co-authored a simple single page form where a verifier’s rating could be one of the following:
Approved: Initial tokens released or annual percentage of tokens unlocked.
Approved with comments: Minor corrections or missing details would be forgiven one time only.
Rejected: No new tokens would be released and any existing CRC listings would be pulled.
Buyers
Now we arrive at the last piece of the puzzle, the buyer's experience. Nori leadership needed to design a marketplace where the integrity of the CRC was paramount.
Now we arrive at the last piece of the puzzle, the buyer's experience. Nori leadership needed to design a marketplace where the integrity of the CRC was paramount.
Now we arrive at the last piece of the puzzle, they buyer's experience. Nori needed a marketplace where the integrity of the CRC was paramount, not only the long term success of Nori, but carbon removal markets as a whole.
One of Nori's founders was an expert in carbon markets and had actually helped author carbon reduction protocols dating back to the mid 90s. Over the course of several meetings, she outlined to me the basic structure of what she called a Forwards Contract Auction, which is essentially a double blind auction where buyers and sellers are matched anonymously to determine a clearing price.
One of Nori's founders was an expert in carbon markets and had actually helped author carbon reduction protocols dating back to the mid 90s. Over the course of several meetings she outlined to me the basic structure of what she called a Forwards Contract Auction, which is essentially a double blind auction where buyers and sellers are matched based anonymously to determine a sale price.
The matching process is actually really simple. For a scheduled auction, farmers opt in to listing as many of their available CRCs as they like while buyers place bids for how many CRCs they wish to purchase and at what price. Listing prices are ordered from lowest to highest while buyer bids are ordered highest to lowest.
The lowest buyer bid price that is at or above a farmer's CRC list price determines the clearing price. CRCs are not sold if the supplier wanted more money per CRC than the clearing price and buyers who wanted to pay less than the clearing price won't get any CRCs.
After the auction time closes, we look for a buyer's bid that is at or above a farmer's list price. If we find one then have found our match and that price is locked in as the clearing price. CRCs are not sold if the supplier wanted more money per CRC than the clearing price and buyers who wanted to pay less than the clearing price won't get any CRCs.
In the event there are fewer CRCs to sell at the clearing price than the actual demand, priority goes to buyers with the highest bid price while only having to pay at the lower clearing price. The clearing price then becomes public record along with the total matches. This affords both farmers and buyers a way to observe the pricing trend over time and decide when it's best for them to participate in an auction.
In the event there are fewer CRCs to sell at the clearing price than the actual demand for CRCs, priority goes to buyers with the highest bid price while they still only pay the clearing price. The clearing price then becomes public record along with the total matches so both farmers and buyers can observe the trend over time and decide when it's best for them to participate in an auction. The mechanism that gives buying preference to higher bidders slowly pushes the price up each auction as long as CRCs are sold out.
Impact
Impact
Two years after joining the company, Nori was able to secure $7 million in series A funding. The Nori platform was off and running in no small part to the work I put into its original design.
Two years after joining the company, Nori was able to secure $7 million in series A funding. The Nori platform was off and running in no small part to the work I put into its original design.
Two years after joining the company, Nori was able to secure $7 million in funding. The Nori platform was off and running in no small part to the work I put into it’s original design.
