Unlike mainstream carbon market providers, the unit Native deals in is not an abstract metric like a carbon credit or a biodiversity credit, but a 3m² of nature - a Native Square. 

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Squares are allocated upon purchase using our proprietary geospatial mapping system. Although ownership of the land will remain with the communities, buying a Native Square entitles you to 40 years of associated environmental rights derived from the Square. To that end, each Square comes with data concerning the carbon, biodiversity and community impact of the Square which allow it to be used as offsets or contributions in much the same way as a carbon credit or a biodiversity credit, but these are features of the Square, rather than the unit itself. One might have to buy multiple Squares to reach one additional tonne of carbon sequestered, for example.

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This may seem like a trivial difference, but in fact is a fundamental departure from nature market orthodoxy which addresses many of the issues raised in the preceding section.

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Firstly, it moves beyond the reductionism of nature markets by making clear that an area of nature is not reducible to any one metric, nor can it be valued on the basis of any one metric. 

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Previous attempts to package “co-benefits” into carbon credits such as REDD+ have failed on the basis that the ultimate unit is still a tonne of carbon, and this tonne - however high quality and however many co-benefits it comes with - is still having to compete with low quality tonnes which really are just that - a tonne of carbon. However effectively this difference is communicated to buyers, you are at this point fighting a losing battle with the market which invariably ends up undervaluing nature.

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Secondly, as detailed in a later section, it greatly increases transparency and tangibility. In mainstream carbon markets when tonnes are lost due to deforestation the buyer is not even notified. Their “tonnes” are simply substituted for other tonnes from another area with the presumption that they are equivalent. This fundamentally alienates buyers from the real places they are helping protect and treats these unique, precious places as interchangeable, valued only for the raw material (CO₂) stored within them.

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With Native, buyers will be able to track their Squares directly for themselves using our map. This ensures that we are held to the highest standards of accountability and transparency. While we have insurance and compensation mechanisms (see section below) to compensate buyers for any negligence or malpractice, there is an implicit acknowledgment that a Square of nature lost cannot simply be expunged or neutralized.