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Kokonut uses two complementary external frameworks to structure its annual impact reporting and carbon risk assessment. Together they answer two questions every DAO member, grant reviewer, and institutional partner needs answered about any Kokonut farm:
  • EBF (Ecological Benefits Framework): What ecological and community benefits does this farm produce, and how are they measured?
  • CRISP (Carbon Risk Identification and Scoring Principles): What risks threaten this farm’s ability to deliver those benefits, and how severe are they? EBF provides the impact reporting architecture. CRISP provides the risk assessment methodology. Used together, they form a complete, externally auditable impact profile for every Kokonut farm — grounded in the data collected by the MRV stack and anchored as on-chain EAS attestations.
Where these frameworks appear in the Kokonut workflow:
StageFrameworkWho produces itWhere it’s published
ContinuousMRV data collectionImpact Guild + agentsData Hub
AnnualEBF impact reportImpact GuildData Hub + EAS attestation on Gnosis Chain
AnnualCRISP risk assessmentImpact Guild + Technology GuildData Hub + included in EBF report
OngoingSDG attestationsEAS-anchored per dimensionGnosis Chain
At Adelphi, both frameworks are active: the annual EBF report documents impact across four dimensions; CRISP scoring is conducted annually to assess the five carbon delivery risk factors.

Ecological Benefits Framework (EBF)

What is EBF?

The Ecological Benefits Framework is a new paradigm in impact assessment — a foundational architecture designed to radically transform global carbon and ecological benefits markets by increasing transparency, trust, quality, and equity, and by accelerating the coordinated delivery of positive financial and environmental impacts. EBF was developed to move beyond carbon-only accounting. Carbon markets serve valuable roles — but when considered holistically, carbon is part of larger natural systems that include air, water, soil, biodiversity, and equity. EBF provides a shared framework that captures all of these dimensions, allowing public and private sectors to coordinate on ecological impact in a common language. By developing a shared framework, EBF aligns financial markets, UN agencies, NGOs, companies, and philanthropic interests around a shared pathway for accelerated ecological solutions.

Why the world needs a common ecological framework

We need to move out of the Age of Extraction and enter the Age of Regeneration. Over the past 12,000 years, human history has borne witness to the unyielding pursuit of resources through extractive, one-way practices. The repercussions are everywhere: biodiversity collapse, species loss, water scarcity, barren topsoils, unbreathable air, climate change, and worsening living conditions for hundreds of millions of people. A common framework for ecological benefits doesn’t replace market mechanisms — it makes them capable of capturing the full value of what regenerative systems produce. Without it, a syntropic farm that sequesters carbon, restores soil, increases biodiversity, employs local women, and feeds a community can only capture value from the carbon component. EBF provides the architecture to make all of those benefits financially and institutionally legible.

EBF is not a data standard or a certification

Neither. It is a set of definitions and agreements — a playbook. The Bluetooth analogy: Bluetooth is a wireless communication protocol that allows any Bluetooth-enabled device to communicate with any other, regardless of manufacturer, brand, or model. EBF is the ecological equivalent — a shared protocol that allows any farm, market, institution, or NGO to communicate ecological benefits in a format that any other participant can read and verify, regardless of which specific measurement tools or reporting systems they use.

EBF does not replace carbon markets

No. It expands them. The compliance and voluntary carbon markets serve valuable roles in helping organizations reach sustainability objectives, from ESG to compliance to business goals, while contributing to climate action. Carbon is part of the picture — but air quality, biodiversity, water quality, soil health, and community equity are the rest. EBF provides the architecture to capture the full picture, making carbon markets more accurate, not obsolete.

The four EBF reporting dimensions

Every Kokonut farm’s annual EBF report is organized around four dimensions — each corresponding to specific capital forms in the 8 Forms of Capital framework:
EBF DimensionWhat it measuresCapital formsAt Adelphi
Environmental ImpactEcological health and carbon performanceNatural CapitalAnnual carbon sequestration (t CO₂e/acre/yr), NDVI averages, biodiversity index changes
Economic ImpactFinancial impact on farmers and communitiesFinancial CapitalGross revenue, public goods distributed, jobs created and sustained
Social ImpactCommunity wellbeing and capacitySocial + Human CapitalWorkshops held, participants trained, women in leadership
SustainabilityLong-term resilience across all 8 capital formsAll 8 formsAnnual audit across all capital dimensions; organic certification status; SDG attestation count

How Kokonut produces its EBF report

The EBF annual report for each Kokonut farm is produced by the Impact Guild using data collected through the three-tier MRV stack:
  1. Environmental data comes from satellite vegetation indices (NDVI, NDRE, MSAVI) processed from Landsat 8 and Sentinel imagery, plus soil probe readings (volumetric water content, electrical conductivity, soil temperature)
  2. Economic data comes from harvest records logged per cycle via Atlantis App and the Farm Registry API /harvests endpoint
  3. Social data comes from employment records, training participation logs, and community program attendance — logged via Atlantis App
  4. Sustainability data comes from the full 8 Forms of Capital annual audit, species counts in the nursery, and organic certification status The completed report is published to the Data Hub and anchored as an EAS attestation on Gnosis Chain — making the report not just published, but cryptographically verifiable.

CRISP — Carbon Risk Identification and Scoring Principles

What is CRISP?

CRISP is an open, Creative Commons-licensed framework for assessing the risks associated with financing science-based carbon credit projects, with a specific focus on the risk of non-delivery of forward carbon credit units. It was developed to bring transparency and consistency to the carbon market due diligence process. CRISP objective: Capture the risks of non-delivery of forward carbon credit units — providing all stakeholders with the information needed to make informed decisions while supporting global climate action initiatives. CRISP is not a pass/fail certification. It is a scoring framework that quantifies the probability and severity of delivery failure across five risk dimensions — giving DAO members, institutional investors, and grant reviewers a structured, comparable basis for evaluating carbon credit projects.

The five CRISP risk factors

Risk factorWhat it assessesAt Adelphi
1. Carbon Yield RiskWill the land actually sequester the projected carbon volumes? Is the baseline methodology defensible?Satellite NDVI/NDRE monitoring per overpass provides continuous vegetation performance data; biochar incorporation is documented and quantified
2. Climate Catastrophe RiskWhat is the probability of drought, fire, flood, or extreme weather events destroying sequestered carbon?Monte Plata’s tropical climate; syntropic soil water retention as drought mitigation; beard grass erosion control on terraced terrain
3. Policy and Legal RiskAre there regulatory or legal changes that could invalidate the project or its credits?Dominican Republic agricultural policy environment; DAO governance structure provides distributed governance that doesn’t depend on any single jurisdiction
4. Financial RiskDoes the project have sufficient capital reserves to survive revenue shortfalls, cost overruns, or market disruptions?DAO stablecoin-only treasury with rage-quit protection; multi-cycle crop mix prevents single-crop revenue dependency; 10% public goods allocation creates reserve discipline
5. Project Developer RiskDoes the operating team have the capability, experience, and commitment to deliver on the project’s carbon claims?Yanny and Neury Hernández as founding operators; Kokonut Impact Guild providing technical oversight; on-chain EAS attestations creating accountability

When Kokonut applies CRISP

CRISP assessment is conducted annually as part of the EBF reporting cycle — not as a one-time evaluation at project launch. This matters because carbon delivery risk changes over time: a farm in Phase I has different Climate Catastrophe Risk than a farm in Phase III with established root systems; a farm with two years of verified MRV data has lower Project Developer Risk than a farm with none. For Kokonut farms, the CRISP scores from each annual cycle:
  • Feed into the Operational Variables pillar of the Framework Introduction — as the “Risk Profiles” that inform capital allocation decisions
  • Provide the risk context for any carbon credit or RWA primitive the farm produces
  • Are included in the annual EBF report published to the Data Hub A farm that consistently scores low across all five CRISP dimensions — through verified MRV data, proven operator track record, and demonstrated financial resilience — is in a qualitatively different position for institutional capital access than a farm with only self-reported claims.

How EBF and CRISP work together

EBF and CRISP answer the same fundamental investment question from opposite angles:
EBF asks:   What ecological and community value does this farm produce?
CRISP asks: What is the probability that those claims are accurate and deliverable?
 
Combined:   A farm's verified impact (EBF) + its risk-adjusted delivery
            probability (CRISP) = a complete, auditable impact profile
            that institutional capital can act on.
For a Kokonut DAO member evaluating a Farm Funding proposal (KDP), both assessments are relevant:
  • The EBF report tells you what the farm has produced and is projected to produce
  • The CRISP score tells you how much to weight those projections given the risk environment For a grant reviewer from Public Nouns, Gitcoin, or a ReFi institutional partner, the combination provides the structured due diligence basis that replaces subjective impact claims with audited, risk-adjusted evidence.
Both frameworks are anchored in the same underlying data — the MRV pipeline that runs continuously at every Kokonut farm and produces on-chain EAS attestations for every significant measurement event. The frameworks are the interpretation layer; the MRV data is the evidence.

EBF Framework

The official Ecological Benefits Framework — definitions, agreements, and the full playbook for ecological benefit accounting across air, water, soil, biodiversity, and equity.

MRV — Measurement & Verification

The data pipeline that produces the evidence behind every EBF dimension and CRISP risk factor — satellite monitoring, soil probes, community analytics, and on-chain EAS attestations.

8 Forms of Capital

The capital measurement framework that maps to EBF’s four reporting dimensions — Natural, Financial, Social, Human, Material, Intellectual, Cultural, and Health capital.

Adelphi Data Hub

Where Adelphi’s annual EBF reports and CRISP assessments are published — alongside the MRV data and harvest records that underpin both frameworks.