EXECUTION AND SCALEUP

 

 

A. SOCIAL BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

A1. Social mantra one-liner 

Our social mantra is: Platform for “planting trees, greening tomorrows”

VerdeChain is an independent tree planting platform that have been working for BlockTree – a pioneer BlockChain & NFT-Based Technology platform applied for reforestation in Asia, since our establishment. We have a duty of helping them find and connect various sponsors

A2. Business Model Overview

1. Economic Value 

• Trust: our platform promises to create an immutable record of tree planting activities since both sponsor and Blocktree can keep track of their project and the growth of trees planted in the appointed area, promoting sponsor engagement and willingness to invest 

• Transparency: VerdeChain platform also allows sponsors and BlockTree to monitor the usage of their financing, which guarantees that money invested ultimately goes to where they are supposed to

• Traceability: When sponsors and BlockTree are connected, both of them can track all transactions conducted and activities associated with afforestation projects, which ensures that all parties engaged are responsible for their actions

2. Social Value

About social value, the collaboration between VerdeChain and BlockTree aims at a more sustainable environment by strictly adhering to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 

• SDG13: combating climate change caused by deforestation is the most outstanding reason why we decided to generate the VerdeChain platform and collaborate with BlockTree. We believe that by using this platform to connect more sponsors for BlockTree, more and more trees are saved and planted, which can minimize the amount of CO2 existing in the environment and ultimately remove the impact of climate change

• SDG 15: Moreover, through planting more trees, people can also tackle desertification and land degradation 

• SDG 17: Thanks to VerdeChain platform, we can help BlockTree gather environment-conscious sponsors to create a huge and strong community working together to promote afforestation

3. Value capture

VerdeChain completely contributes all the donations to our afforestation programs and has no profit-produced activities. However, sometimes, there might be initiatives to obtain financial support such as providing consulting services to BlockTree relating to their afforestation or taking a commission from the transaction between sponsors and BlockTree.

 

A3. Growth Potential

• BlockChain has been currently taken into consideration in multiple Asian countries and BlockTree is a pioneer in applying BlockChain technology to supervise tree planting activities in both Vietnam and Asia
• In Vietnam, many tree planting platforms just have functions of launching many tree planting campaign and they don’t have any function of connecting a specific business with particular sponsor as VerdeChain platform 

→ Therefore, this collaboration is expected to create a remarkable explosion in the afforestation industry, enhance our position and increase our reputation not only in Vietnam but also in Asian countries.

Until now, we suppose that there is no existing fierce competition that we have to face. However, I believe that in the near future, there will be more and more platform having the same functions like VerdeChain platform and we have to confront with these competitors

• Currently, VerdeChain helped BlockTree receive sponsorship for 3000 trees from E-International Scholarship launched by SunUni Academy, ELSA Corp and their partners 
• The 3000 trees sponsored by the program will be planted in the mangrove forests of Tra Vinh Province at the end of this July

 

B. RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES TO EXECUTE

B1. Key capitals

1.Human capital 

Our dedicated team at VerdeChain is currently consists of 10 members, including 1 Project leader and other 4 departments in charge for different functions

• Product Department: 1 Product Manager, 1 Backend Developer and 1 Frontend Developer
• Partnership Department: 1 Partnership Manager, 2 External Relation Executive. We focus on Partnership as this is the key factor in our business model. 
• Marketing Department: 1 Marketing Manager, 2 Marketing Executive 
• Operational Department: 1 Operating Executive

 

VerdeChain is a collection of young people with lots of ambition and enthusiasm with experienced mentors and coaches. Our veteran members have 10-20 years working in the fields of education, social development and afforestation. They are lecturers, business owners, office workers and students from around VietNam. We work towards the same goal: promoting afforestation and minimizing the impacts of deforestation on Vietnam’s future.

 

We plan to expand the human resources of our team through 

• Linkedin recruitment, Facebook ads and other social media channel (tree-lover community, partners’ community
• Employer branding online and offline
• Recruiting in offline event of partners

 

VerdeChain’s Facebook platform

 

2. Social capital

With a focus on creating a connection platform between afforesters and sponsors with the need to implement ESG campaigns for society, we constantly seek and develop cooperative relationships with centered, focused organizations having targeted certain achievements

 

We have established relationships with various partners, from sponsors to planters and local organization

 

Planters: Blocktree – An afforesting company that used blockchain technology for planting

 VerdeChain signs cooperation agreements with partner businesses

Sponsors: organization with resources and demand for conducting ESG campaign

• Elsa Speak – VerdeChain’s educational partner as a sponsor
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• SunUni Academy – Ielts learning platform 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Rootopia – fintech platform for educational planning 

 

 

 

• Payoo – payment platform 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Ben Tre and Tra Vinh Provincial Youth Union,  Ben Tre and Tra Vinh Province Department of Agriculture and Rural Development: a local organization that is committed to environmental protection. VerdeChain is working with these organizations to raise awareness and create occupations for local people through afforestation activities

 

 

3.Intellectual capital

The company’s brand, a valuable asset, was registered as a trademark 6 months ago at the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam. This registration grants VerdeChain exclusive rights to the brand for a period of 20 years, safeguarding it against unauthorized use.

With a current estimated value of 1 million USD, the trademark represents a significant investment for the company. The responsibility of protecting this valuable asset falls under the purview of the marketing department, ensuring the brand’s continued integrity and value in the market

4.Manufactured capital

• VerdeChain is working as a platform for connecting companies and maximizing revenue for afforestation, so we don’t have a physical office and are currently working online.
• VerdeChain manages our team through Slack and other communication platforms.  In the near future, we’re planning to rent a small co-working space for offline activities.

5.Financial Capital

At first, VerdeChain is not operating well, we are barely surviving by relying on donations from organizations and have to face financial challenges.

However, in recent times, we have diversified our revenue streams by forging partnerships with Sponsors to help them find the appropriate Planters whom VerdeChain is working with, to conduct their campaign and manage post-planting activities. 

Although we haven’t accumulated a stable financial situation at the moment, we expect to generate the authorized capital of 1 billion VND in the next 1 year. 80% of our capital will be allocated to continue to improve performance of the platform, UI/UX design, and develop new features. This fee will also be used to recruit human capital and  improve product market fit. The average expected cash flow for the next 1 year will be 80-90 million VND/ month. 

B2. Business traction

To make the product become viable and ready for the market, our core team has gone through the process as follow: 

 

 

At the present, to approach fundings, VerdeChain sent proposal pitches to a number of investors. In June 2024, we made our presentation for The University of Pennsylvania.  These pitches outlined the company’s business model, the need for their product or service, and the potential market size. 

 

Up to now, VerdeChain has recorded remarkable numbers for our journey. VerdeChain has cooperated with more than 300 individuals and organizations to carry out forest greening activities, with more than 15,000 trees planted and recorded. In particular, there are 3 large partners, all are government organizations in Tra Vinh with an afforestation capacity of 2,000,000 trees and will continue to be developed in the future.

The amount of money we have helped Blocktree fund exceed 375.000.000 VND, equal to the price of 25.000 VND for each tree. In comparison with the first year of 2023, VerdeChain has grown 20% from 12,500 trees. In the future, our newest cooperation will add 3,000 more trees into our “green collection”, increasing our growth rate to 44%.

B3. Risk management

1. Financial risk

VerdeChain faces financial risks due to reliance on external funding and our revenue model is still underdeveloped. To mitigate these financial and partnership risks, VerdeChain employs Social Trusting, a community voting system similar to crowdfunding. Through our fan page, we call for funding and allow sponsors to select the next forest plantation location, enhancing engagement and involvement from our supporters. Moreover, we have planned to open a charity event at medium scale to raise capital for the project. Our revenue stream is also expanded by signing contracts with partners and receiving intermediary money. 

2. Social Impact risk 

For social impact risk, VerdeChain actively addresses the risk of favoring larger organizations in tree-planting activities. Larger companies often prioritize large afforestation organizations for branding purposes, neglecting local groups. VerdeChain implements a tiered system to prioritize smaller projects and marginalized groups. We empower local communities and ensure equitable distribution of resources. To support smaller planters, we offer resources and training to help them meet sponsor standards, fostering a more inclusive platform.

3. Operational and Scalable risks

To manage operational and scalable risks, VerdeChain focus on human capital and partnership with VerdeChain. Members are trained and have strong leadership capabilities, implementing robust operational systems to streamline workflows, increase efficiency, and enhance service delivery. We promote partnerships with local governments and cooperatives to find growing areas and create jobs for people. Partnering with local communities also helps ensure that our initiatives are aligned with the needs and aspirations of the people we serve.

 

C. ESG PERFORMANCE

C1. Overall impacts on the society and environment

1.Environmental Risks

VerdeChain  platform addresses significant environmental risks associated with deforestation. Fortunately, at that time, the functions of our platform met the demand of BlockTree so both of us decided to collaborate together. 

 

By supporting BlockTree to connect with more sponsors through VerdeChain platform and employing BlockChain & NFT-Based Technology platform provided by BlockTree, both of us can directly contribute to mitigate deforestation impacts, which is crucial for combating climate change 

 

2.Social Risks 

VerdeChain’s initiatives involve local communities in afforestation efforts, which fosters social inclusion and engagement. By connecting more sponsors, more trees are planted, contributing to improve local ecosystems and potentially provide economic benefits to communities such as employment, income generation….

 

3.Governance Risks 

The utilization of BlockChain & NFT technology provided by BlockTree and managed by VerdeChain platform during the tree planting process ensures transparency and trackability in financial transaction and project outcomes. This will mitigate the governance risks related to financial mismanagement of lack of accountability and ultimately strengthen VerdeChain’s reputation as a reliable partner in sustainable development efforts 

C2. Governance Structure

With the governance structure mentioned in B1 section, we divided our governance structure into specific UN goals commitment presented in this table

 

To boost investors confidence based on our aforementioned governance mechanism, VerdeChain have to ensure:

• Transparency through BlockChain: VerdeChain platform leverages BlockTree’s BlockChain Technology to ensure transparency in financial transactions and project outcomes. This foster trust with potential investors by providing immutable records of funding usage and project progress
• Due diligence: we improve investors confidence through due diligence by collecting and reporting ESG data. Specifically, we use the VerdeChain platform to keep track of the number of trees planted, community engagement during each sponsorship and finally integrate  information into annual reports conducted by our internal management team in order to demonstrate impacts

D. LEARNING CURVE

VerdeChain’s fieldwork revealed valuable insights into the challenges facing ESG platforms like ours. We discovered that a significant hurdle is the lack of trust and transparency between sponsors and planters. Sponsors often struggle to verify the impact of their investments, while planters face difficulties securing reliable funding and technical support.

To address these issues, VerdeChain implemented a robust verification platform to connect with many well-known partners considered as planters and leverage their blockchain technology to track and validate the progress of reforestation projects. This ensures transparency and accountability for all stakeholders involved. Additionally, we have established a network of trusted partners who can provide planters with the necessary resources and expertise to successfully implement their projects.

By focusing on building trust, transparency, and collaboration, VerdeChain is committed to creating a platform that empowers sponsors and planters to achieve their ESG goals