How Proof of Growth works
Proof of Growth is a permanent public record showing that a specific tree was verified at a specific place and time, and confirmed again in later years. It is the difference between saying a tree was planted and being able to prove it.
What actually gets recorded
Not your personal life. The record ties together the essentials needed to audit a claim: that a tree at a given location was verified at a given moment, and which reward followed from it. The point of putting it on a public chain is that nobody, including the project, can go back and rewrite history when it becomes inconvenient.
The verification path
- Capture. The planter photographs the tree in the app. The photograph carries its location, so the claim is anchored to a place rather than to a promise.
- Identity of the tree. Each tree carries a tag, so next year's photo can be matched to the same tree instead of a different one that happens to look similar.
- Automated checks. The image and its location data are checked before submission is accepted, filtering the obvious failure modes: a stock photo, a picture of a screen, a location that does not match.
- Write. The accepted proof becomes an on-chain record, and that year of growth earns its reward.
Why annual re-verification is the important half
A tree is only worth what it keeps doing. Rewarding each confirmed year, rather than the planting itself, is what keeps the model from becoming another planting claim nobody can check.
If a tree does not survive, rewards for it simply stop. Nothing is clawed back, and a new tree can be planted and verified. The result is that ongoing rewards always trace to something still standing.
What this fixes in the wider market
Carbon and reforestation markets have one persistent weakness: verification. Buyers of offsets frequently cannot confirm the underlying work, and audits are expensive, periodic and easy to distrust. A public, continuous, per-tree record does not solve everything, but it moves the burden of proof from marketing to mathematics.
That is also why the same infrastructure is interesting to companies with reporting obligations, which is covered in verifiable ESG proof.
What one record contains
A single Proof of Growth entry is small, and that is deliberate. It holds the place, the moment and the outcome, and nothing that would need trusting.
- Where. The coordinates the verification was made at, so the tree occupies ground of its own and can be found again.
- When. The date the check passed, which is what turns a set of entries into a growth history rather than a pile of photographs.
- Which tree. An identifier that ties this year's entry to last year's, at the same spot, so the record reads as one continuous life.
- The result. That the check passed, and the reward that year earned.
Small entries are what make the whole thing affordable. A record per tree per year, rather than one summary per project per season, is only possible on a chain where writing costs a fraction of a cent, and that granularity is exactly what makes the history auditable years later.
Why the record gets stronger with time
Most evidence is worth most on the day it is made and less every year after. This works the other way around.
A first entry says a tree was planted and checked. Add a second a year later at the same coordinates and it says something a single photograph never can: the tree came through a winter and a summer. By the fifth entry there is a growth curve, and a curve is far harder to arrange than a picture. The evidence compounds, and it compounds in public, where anyone can follow it from the first year to the current one.
That is also why the record is worth more to a company than a certificate bought at the end of a year. A certificate is a statement about the past. A growth history is something that can still be checked tomorrow.
What the record is, precisely
It helps to be exact about what a Proof of Growth entry claims, because the precision is where its value comes from.
- It records a verified year, and each year stands on its own. Survival is not asserted in advance; it is demonstrated by next year's entry appearing at the same coordinates. That is a stronger statement than a promise, because it keeps being made.
- Every check leaves a permanent trace. Automated verification does the filtering, and the chain does the remembering. Anything submitted stays visible, which makes the record easy to audit and unrewarding to game.
- It is written where it can be read. A record is worth the network it sits on, which is why the chain was chosen for cost and permanence before anything else. See why Solana.
Common questions
What is Proof of Growth?
Proof of Growth is an on-chain record created when a planted tree is verified through a location-tagged photo. It shows that a specific tree existed at a specific place and time, and it is repeated each year the tree is confirmed alive.
How is a verification checked?
Every submission is checked automatically against its image and location data before anything is written. Once a record is on a public blockchain it stays exactly as it was, so the whole history can be audited by anyone, at any time.