An update on the California Fund
If you're in a rush, here's what you need to know this month:
💰 Wren has now sent over $1,700,000 to climate solutions in South America, East Africa, and Scotland!
🌧️ We're entering an exciting new era with our project with The Future Forest Company in Scotland. Wren members are now funding a pilot study for enhanced mineral weathering– a promising carbon removal technique that could soon be capturing millions of tons of CO2 every year.
🔥 Because the Fund has grown so quickly, we've reached capacity on our clean cooking fuel project in Uganda. We're still purchasing offsets from this project, but we're only sending a small fraction of the fund to it.
This is an update on how we're allocating the California Fund. For more updates like this one, follow Wren on Twitter and Instagram.
The California Fund currently has 1,320 supporters! Together you're thousands of tons of CO2 every month. Thank you all for your support!
In this update we'll go through the allocation of the fund, and explain recent changes we've made to the projects you're supporting.
Current fund allocation
The start of a new chapter with The Future Forest Company
We've been impressed with The Future Forest Company's ambitious expansion plans: Over the past year they bought 3 new forests, started storing carbon long-term with biochar, and planted over 100,000 trees. And recently they started a pilot study for enhanced mineral weathering– a promising carbon removal technique that speeds up natural geochemical processes, storing carbon for millions of years. They gave us the opportunity to buy carbon removals for this project, and we couldn't resist.
Your subscription is no longer funding regenerative agroforestry– it's funding enhanced mineral weathering.
Enhanced mineral weathering has the potential to scale up to capture millions of tons of CO2 every year. You can learn more in this recent update.
Wren outgrows its first climate project
Wren has been growing fast– in fact we're almost 30 times the size we were when we first started working with this project. Our growth means we've hit capacity on this project– our demand for their offsets has outpaced what they can supply. This means we've had to reduce the percentage of funds we send to this project– but don't worry, the project is still delivering briquettes to refugees!
We're working with our project partner Mandulis Energy, on an update on the future of this project, and will release it soon!
Biochar production to scale up to 10,000 tons in 2022
Biochar in California has just passed a promising field trial, proving that biochar improves crop yields at several wineries along the Central California Coast. And the project are in the process of finalising contracts with two biomass power plants, to increase biochar production capacity to 10,000 tons per year. You can read more in this project update.
TIST goes back to its Tanzanian roots
Community Tree Planting has over 100,000 farmers, and has lots of available supply, so we've increased our allocation to this project. We're happy we've been able to support their re-entry into Tanzania: where 77 farmers originally started the project, 20 years ago. You can read more in the recent project update.
Our rainforest protection project is now peer-reviewed science
The data is in: giving indigenous people the tools to protect their rainforest home is by far the most effective way to save the Amazon. A peer-reviewed paper published in PNAS demonstrated that Tech Enabled Rainforest Protection reduces deforestation by over 50% compared to other methods. Our project with Rainforest Foundation US is expanding as a result. For these reasons and more, we're pleased to increase the funds we're sending to this project!
That's it for this update. If you have any questions please reply to this email, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
– Thomas and the Wren team