Monitoring carbon offset reforestation projects

The global video games industry is estimated to be worth $120B in 2018, bigger than the movie ($41B) and music ($19B) industries combined, with an estimated 2.5B players.

First, it takes decades before the trees grow enough to capture the maximum of CO2 they are supposed to. So the impact of such programs would (theoretically) be felt in decades while companies book the results of their offsets immediately.

I personally think that an interesting opportunity is to better transpose online the spontaneity/serendipity of the interactions that people have at the office. Two good examples are Loom which enables workers to create videos with the least friction possible (more spontaneity), and Around which is doing what Loom did, but applied to video conferen... See more

So on the one hand companies love afforestation as a carbon offset mechanism because it’s good for branding (everyone loves trees) and easy to pay for, but on the other hand, the results of such programs are very controversial.

And by the way, I don’t believe that the future of work will be fully remote work, but rather a blend of full and punctual remote together with office presence. This is why these tools could make sense for the majority of businesses and not only for remote only businesses.

As I said in the previous point, there’s an increasing number of people who are aged 55+, who are still working (especially that in many societies we’ll work longer), have money to spend, are fit/healthy and who have specific needs. This is why I think models like Wisr (a marketplace for senior talents listed on the landscape) or a Peloton for boom... See more

This explosion is enabled by a new breed of pick and shovel software that democratizes the process of making and publishing games. A good example of this trend is related to video game assets. To make a video game, you need to create many assets ranging from 3D/2D models, textures, sounds (and more) which are usually done “by hand” by specialized d... See more

Second, the real benefits of current afforestation programs are hotly debated because these programs are not monitored well enough over time (read this article to understand how messed up this space is) and also because what often happens is that the trees that are planted somewhere lead to other trees being cut in another region. Afforestation oft... See more

Third, many afforestation programs are totally opaque in terms of how the money is really used which leads to many scandals.

Before starting this memo I would like to touch some words on afforestation/reforestation programs (a.k.a planting trees) as a carbon offset mechanism. Planting trees has become the darling of many large companies that aim to become carbon neutral in the next couple of years. However, planting trees (as a carbon offset mechanism) has many issues: