Handprint’s FAQ

You might already know what a Footprint is: the sum of all the negative impact we leave on the planet.

Well, a Handprint is the sum of all the actions you take to create a positive impact on the Earth – beyond just neutrality or compensation.

For instance, Handprint Tech enables actual carbon absorption from the atmosphere, which has more impact than only reducing the carbon emissions. And on top of it, our actions improve the livelihood of local villagers living by the mangroves reforestation areas.

Absolutely.

Yes!

Login to the dashboard and navigate to Browse Projects. Browse through the available projects, and you’ll have the option for a one-time impact purchase, or to set up a monthly subscription for impact purchases.

Offsetting leads to carbon neutrality alone. Even if we stop emitting all carbon right away, we would still have damaging climate change. So, we need to go beyond carbon neutrality. Carbon offsets have been around for decades and have simply not created enough change; we need a new language to talk about positive impact.

Carbon offsets are also linked to carbon credits and those represent carbon absorbed in the previous year. We want to promote upfront financing so that companies invest in natural capital and develop a long term relationship with the forest which doesn’t happen with annually bought carbon credits.

We’ve written more on the topic in the [blogpost here](https://handprint.tech/why-were-so-over-offsetting/) – enjoy!

The impact badge is exactly that. On your dashboard, navigate to impact badge and choose your settings. You’ll be able to install this into your website by copying and pasting the code snippet into your website.

You know the economy is intrinsically bad for the planet, because it’s mainly extractive – meaning that companies extract resources from a planet that cannot cope with it. What we enable is to align the interest of the economy with the interests of the planet by making the economy regenerative.
What that means is we want to enable the emergence of an economy that regenerates environmental ecosystems.
We want to become the standard for how companies and consumers go green and track their positive impact growing over time.
We envision that in a few years, when you apply to a job, companies will not only ask for your Linkedin but also for your handprint. “Show me how much you care for the planet, show me your handprint”.

From the NGO perspective, we are providing them with a fundraising service with digital tools to streamline their processes and better manage their cash flow, cash management reporting and impact reporting.

We enable small scale impact projects to get funded by a global network of companies, cutting the intermediaries fees that can go up to 80% today.

Today, we work with a range of organisations that focus on mangrove reforestation, coral restoration, education for children, access to clean water… Create your account on our dashboard to view the projects and prices for each unit of impact.

Handprint creates a peer-to-peer connection between impact provider and buyers.
Carbon credit companies have one more intermediary between donor and project: the certification body, hence less money goes to impact. Handprint has a much higher impact per dollar.

The actual projects Carbon Credits are financing are projects such as solar panel farms that do not benefit the ecosystems, don’t have much social impact and do not capture carbon from the atmosphere.

Consumers now vote with their wallet. By supporting regenerative brands over non-sustainable brands, they are empowered to play their part in fighting climate change. They create and influence markets, raise awareness among their own communities, support ethical work, etc.

In other words, the more positive actions we all generate, the bigger the snowball effect and the better for our planet. 🌏

Cherry on the cake: it provides a feel-good sensation instead of the usual guilt that comes with a doom-and-gloom narrative. 😉

With an average 11 million metric tonnes of plastic waste entering the marine ecosystems every single year and far more leaking into our terrestrial biospheres it is no wonder there is an adverse effect on wildlife biodiversity and abundance as well as human health.

The impact of plastics on marine wildlife can be broken down into two categories:

**A. Direct physical impact:**

These usually involve macroplastics, this is the direct impact of throwing a plastic water bottle into the ocean. Some of the causes of death from macroplastics within animal species include everything from entanglement, ingestion leading to suffocation and even starvation.

**B. Secondary physiological impact:**

If not removed quickly, macroplastics breakdown and then become microplastics. There is a considerable lack of transparency of chemicals used in the creation of plastics and as a result there is huge uncertainty in how these plastics breakdown in the environment and within humans and wildlife. WWF released a paper last year stating that humans ingest 5 grams of plastic a week (about the size of your credit card)! Even more recent science has found that microplastics, when ingested, cause inflammation and act as hormone blockers leading to growth defects and infertility in gametophytes of some species.

Handprint has created tools that are not just innovative, but it solves the problem of transparency that most CSR teams and NGOs struggle with. On top of that our mission is to empower brands and customers to celebrate the positive impact they created, in real-time. We hope to help you forge that brand connection and loyalty with your customers through digital sustainability.

Have you ever went speed dating?

That’s not how we do things. Well not exactly. Our team handpicks impact partners based on evolving criteria. Today, we’re seeking high impact, original, cost effective solutions to some of the biggest problems on Earth. And we build long term relationships with our partners.

We began with the direct networks of our founders, Ryan and Simon, two Ph.D. in sustainable development researching innovations in ocean restoration and regenerative mangrove forestry. From here we’ve expanded our portfolio of high quality impact partners via referral networks – so today we’re honoured to support amazing teams on three continents working in climate action, ocean health, social justice, habitat conservation, and women’s empowerment.

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Sure. Drop us an email at hello@handprint.tech with information on your favourite NGO and we’ll assess if it’s a match.

The energy consumption of blockchains is dependent on how the validators operate. Validators are the computer processors used to verify transactions and reach a consensus about the true state of the ledger. It’s called a consensus mechanism.

There are multiple variations, e.g. Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake andProof-of-Authority. Most public blockchains, like Zilliqa, which is the technology we’re using, use Proof-of-Work (POW) and this can be quite energy-intensive indeed.

However, Zilliqa’s particular consensus mechanism is much more energy-efficient than normal POW because it uses sharding. In Bitcoin’s POW, every processor (and thus all consumed energy) needs to verify each transaction that happens on the Bitcoin blockchain. That makes it very energy-intensive.

Sharding allows different miners to verify different transactions and thus operate in parallel. The great thing about this is that it massively boosts speed and scalability without a significant loss in security. That’s one of the things that make Zilliqa a great blockchain for our purposes.

You can read more about Zilliqa’s efficiency in this Forbes article [here](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chynes/2018/05/25/how-singapores-academics-are-helping-it-win-the-blockchain-race/#330d75a32c89).

The new blockchains with which we are exploring partnerships are using different consensus mechanism and are hence very energy efficient. Some are already compensating remaining emissions.

We know how much you love your trees: as much as we do.

Your Handprint Dashboards is your go-to place to monitor your contributions and track their impact in real-life.

The Track Handprint section will show you all the metrics: number of trees, amount of CO2 absorbed over time, trees location and species, etc.

Go take a look in Impact Stories as well, where photos and videos from the field are fed. Cherry on the cake: you can share them on your social media channels and newsletters!

We are working hard to make everything as transparent as possible. By creating a public accounting system on the blockchain you can actually track the movement of ‘a fiat equivalent tokens’. This is what happens on the mirrored chain. Our collaborators at GMT have created an application that enables planters to confirm receipt of funds. So while right now, we are not yet perfectly able to track your individual dollars, you will be able to know the total cost of a project, who the people are in the local community that are going to receive the funds, and when they receive payments.

We know that this is not yet perfect transparency, but ask yourself this: If you give money to an NGO or donate to another charity, how do you know your money is actually being used for the purpose you intended? In reality you simply don’t. You trust the NGO to do the right thing. Once our system is fully functioning, you will not need to trust us anymore, because everything will be visible publicly.

All of the above!

– NGO – Impact reporting is cross sourced from different sources on the ground and uploaded (we provide free mobile applications and software for NGOs to digitize their projects, report on their fund receipt and usage, report on their impact)
– Handprint – Impact reporting is estimated by our Impact Engine.
– Third Party – Our partners OxCarbon (Oxford University) and Kumi Analytics use satellite imaging and machine learning to verify our predictions. Their results are auditable by anyone from our blockchain window.

This is the core of our technology.

We use a distributed ledger to keep track of fund transfers, usage, allocate impact inventories and assign impact quantifications to these inventories. This way the data is all transparent and even us cannot tamper with it.

Technological verification is cheaper & more accurate, this is why most verification bodies now use technological verification (using technologies like ours or from our friends from Pachama) but still charge very expensive fees to the NGO because they have built bureaucratic layers of headcounts over the years that they need to pay.

Yes, come join the #RegenerationGeneration community!

It’s very simple: create an account, go to your Handprint Dashboard. You’ll find a whole list of projects you can support. You can contribute to each one of them by buying trees, removing plastic from the oceans or funding access to clean drinking water, just to name a few projects.

Your serial key is stored in your Handprint Dashboard. Navigate to Profile, Your Account and the serial key is displayed in the Company Profile box.

Our plugin currently works on Shopify, Woocommerce and Magento.

For anything else, get in touch with us!

If you’re using the Shopify POS, you’ll be able to use our Impact Badges for your physical in-store experience. Please reach out to us directly if you have an exciting idea as we’d love to collaborate and make it a reality!

Not at the moment; it is not in the development pipeline. It is possible to support different campaigns consecutively but not multiple ones concurrently.

Why? We don’t want to create more time to the checkout process. Based on our early stage discovery and initial research with companies, they shared that the last thing they want is to add more time and change needed when checking out. Having multiple campaigns choices and options creates an extra step in the checkout process which could increase the risk of them not making a purchase.

It is free to use our plugin, and premium features can be accessed via a monthly subscription. These premium features are charged on a monthly basis and you may cancel this subscription at any time.

It is $9 to access the first premium feature, and $3 for every subsequent feature. The maximum monthly subscription amount is $15.

At the end of the month, you will be invoiced for the impact that you’ve generated and usage of premium features.

**Have you completed the second step of your onboarding checklist?**

If you’ve already downloaded the application on Shopify, follow these steps:

**Please follow these steps in the specific order laid out below.**

1. Uninstall the Handprint app from your Shopify store.

2. Log out from Shopify. It will be helpful to close all open Shopify browser tabs on your internet browser (Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox etc).

3. Log out from your Handprint dashboard.

4. Login to the Handprint dashboard, click on the second step of your onboarding guide.

5. On the next screen, select “Shopify” as your platform, click “Confirm e-commerce” and you’ll be redirected to your Shopify store.

6. On the next screen, click on “Add app”. You’ll be prompted to login to your Shopify account.

7. Click “Install App” on this page, at the top right-hand corner.

YES!

When you’re on the Handprint dashboard, you may customise the shape, colours, and text. You can also customise where the plugin appears in the cart page and how your contribution is computed (% sales revenue, 1 tree per order).

Do note that some features are premium features, but you’ll be prompted with a notification so that you aren’t billed without your knowledge.

One of our latest A/B testing results with our client store increased sales by 16% after installing Handprint, allowing them to create an impact of 2,045 trees in a single month, while growing revenue.

We are currently based in Singapore and we see the “trend” increasing with each new catastrophe (scorching summer temperatures, forest fires and flash floods) – not just here but all around the world. It is a clear sign that climate change is real and happening faster than anticipated. Everyone is witnessing these effects of global warming increasing in intensity. This wake up call has caused many to rethink the way they’ve been living and their need to live more sustainably so yes, definitely an upward trend in the area of sustainability.

We often get this question so we wrote a simple blog post about it!

Right now, there is no fully developed technology to do the same as we do with forests. So instead, we will rely on them to provide us with truthful information about how much plastic they removed from the ocean and ensure they are not “double-selling” your impact project to others as well.

We are developing a scoring framework that is based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

Read more about our Regeneration Scorecard here. Regeneration Score is a metric that measures impact in the context of the development needs of the benefitting communities. Therefore, providing expert guidance about the potential of impact partners.

We cross data that the NGOs report to us through our platform on various metrics like female employment and biodiversity support, as well as external data like satellite images that are processed to analyse forest growth and compute how much carbon has been absorbed.

Ensuring that all impacts are indeed real is a complex endeavour. We are building our impact engine with six complementary drivers of trust that jointly form the acronym ‘SAFEST’. Read more here.

We use Stripe as our payment gateway, so the main mode of payment is credit cards!

Of course!

If you have the plugin installed on your e-store:

Shopify: On your Shopify dashboard, navigate to Apps and select the Handprint plugin. You’ll be directed to a page where you my disable the plugin.

Woocommerce: On your Woocommerce dashboard, navigate to plugins and search for the Handprint plugin. You can select the ‘Deactivate’ button here.

To make your life easier. And ours too.

Because Handprint is an automated process, we need your credit card information to create a billing account once and for all, so the money you allocate to the chosen projects can actually be debited without you having to make manual transfers every month.

Once you provide the credit card details, your account is set up and you can start making impact right away! But, if you’re just looking to take a peak under the hood, you won’t get charged for anything until you install and configure the plugin for impact contributions.

And no need to freak out about your data: we don’t store it, Stripe does.

For plugin users, we invoice once a month, at the end of the month. We do monthly invoicing to keep the transaction fees to a minimum.

When someone on your e-commerce store makes a checkout purchase, the entire checkout cart amount goes to you. The plugin records a notification that tells us that a unit of impact has been purchased. At the end of the month, we send you an order table and invoice based on our plugin of which you’ll have the same data. We’ll then bill you using the credit card details you’ve entered. That’s why we ask you to enter your credit card details!

There is a minimum impact contribution of USD $10 to be met before we invoice you for payment.

For impact purchases made via Browse Projects on the dashboard, payment is immediate and you’ll receive the receipt straight away.

The prices vary for the same reason as prices of consumption goods vary in different countries. Depending on the project, there will be different costs associated with labour, land preparation, long term community care, nationally distributed contributions (part of the Paris accord) and so on.

Because mangroves are truly awesome.

They absorb 4 to 10 times more CO2 than terrestrial forests.

They prevent erosion, protecting villagers from natural catastrophes such as floods and typhoons, events that are going to be more and more usual and violent.

They’re home to a wide variety of below-the-water species. Thousands of coastal communities’ livelihood depends on fisheries.

There is a science of planting trees to make it a weapon against climate change. Planting a monoculture in a zone that is not made for it has a very limited impact for example. However, reforesting a zone that was deforested by human activity is very often efficient.
Forests are an important part of the global carbon cycle because trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. By removing this greenhouse gas from the air, forests function as terrestrial carbon sinks, meaning they store large amounts of carbon. At any time, forests account for as much as double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. 1,456 Forests remove around three billion tons of carbon every year. This amounts to about 30% of anthropogenic all carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, an increase in the overall forest cover around the world would mitigate global warming.

Reforestation is one of the most popular carbon sequestration techniques on the planet. However, there happens to be much more to making a forest than just tree cultivation. Effective reforestation means “planting right” and the following considerations are necessary for proper execution.

Read more on what does it mean to plant right here.

Handprint curates the best reforestation projects in the world: those are not projects that just plant trees – which intrinsically has a very limited impact on the environment especially in the example of monoculture. Not all tress are equal, and not all projects produce the same results. Handprint projects regenerate vital ecosystems that were destroyed – leveraging polyculture and deep scientific expertise.
Reforestation is to date one of the best “technology” powered by nature to capture carbon from the atmosphere.
But on Handprint, you can engage in other positive actions than reforestation like ocean plastic clean-up, coral reef restoration, education projects, etc.

Handprint works with its partner, Global Mangrove Trust (GMT), to plant mangroves and fund conservation for 25 years. During the first 25 years of a tree’s life, a mangrove sequesters a great deal of carbon to grow its roots, with estimates as high as 1,000 kg (or one ton) of CO2 equivalent per tree. After 25 years, the tree reaches steady state, and serves as an invaluable carbon storage and anchor for the coastal biome. After 25 years, GMT intends to raise additional funds – together with Handprint – to reward long term conservation with a carbon trust.