by Lydia Ludmila 
Ecosapiens, a tech collective focused on creating eco-friendly products for businesses and consumers, has revealed a fresh enterprise solution: tailored digital collectibles that empower businesses to balance their carbon emissions. This new endeavor is launched in partnership with the Celo Foundation, a nonprofit supporting Celo’s carbon-negative, mobile-first, EVM-compatible blockchain ecosystem. Through this collaborative effort, Ecosapiens is unveiling a unique carbon-neutral NFT, the “Celosapien,” designed to offset 100 percent of Celo’s annual carbon emissions.
Real-world benefits
The Celosapien NFT serves as a practical tool for counterbalancing the carbon footprint of the Celo blockchain, drawing its credits from Celo’s carbon credit suppliers. Additionally, Ecosapiens partners with its own pool of carbon credit providers, presenting an alternative source for future corporate collaborations.
“By marrying carbon and NFTs, we’re getting the real-world benefits of carbon but combining it with the cultural capital and the creative layers that NFTs bring. This leads to new use cases in both consumer and enterprise segments.”
NIHAR NEELAKANTI, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF ECOSAPIENS
The design of the Celosapien NFT is intended to become increasingly intricate as it compensates for more carbon emissions over time. In an effort to democratize access, Ecosapiens is also generating a free, open-edition NFT series of the Celosapien on the Celo network.
“By marrying carbon and NFTs, we’re getting the real-world benefits of carbon but combining it with the cultural capital and the creative layers that NFTs bring. This leads to new use cases in both consumer and enterprise segments,” said Ecosapiens CEO and co-founder Nihar Neelakanti. “This collaboration with the Celo Foundation is a major milestone for us as the first partner for our corporate carbon-backed NFTs, and we hope it will inspire leadership from other businesses to easily and elegantly offset their emissions.”
What’s next
This collaboration follows Ecosapiens’ Genesis collection launch in February, which has offset more than 3,000 tons of carbon, the equivalent of planting about 120,000 trees.
In April, Ecosapiens announced a $3.5 million fundraise, primarily backed by consumer Web3 fund Collab+Currency. They also announced the addition of gmoney to their advisory board. Other notable contributors to the funding round include Alex Witt, Ryan Carson, Brayton Williams of Boost VC, Slow Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and Alumni Ventures Blockchain Fund.
While Celo is the first partner for Ecosapien’s carbon-backed NFTs, Neelakanti tells nft now there are other future partnerships in the works. “This product will eventually be a multi-chain product,” Neelakanti said. “There’s a lot more to come for our corporate product.” He says Ecosapiens will eventually expand to selling to hospitality and consumer retail groups.
Eventually, you’ll see Ecosapien carbon collectibles offered at the checkout line rewarding consumers for making eco-friendly purchases, such as plastic-free shoes, in hotel lobbies where guests can not only learn about the brand’s sustainable practices but actually take home an open edition of that very same art piece,” Neelankanti said.
“The applications here are large — carbon has a real-world use case, and we’re simply emboldening it through the digital collectible form factor.”
