Redefining Value From Outcome Based Funding to Tradeable Impact 2025

Phase 2: Expansion As local networks scale and financial products mature, ICs would gain traction across sectors. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) may emerge to govern grassroots value distribution. In parallel, asset managers and sovereign wealth funds would begin integrating ICs into investment portfolios, and corporations would trade ICs as part of their environmental, sustainability and governance objectives. Demand would intensify, prompted by government recognition of the role of ICs in procurement, tax credits and fiscal spending. Meanwhile, regulatory bodies might begin to introduce policy mechanisms, ranging from quantitative easing to including ICs in central bank reserves, to stabilize IC prices and support market confidence. Phase 3: Integration Social impact would become a core feature of both grassroots economies and institutional financial systems. ICs would be incorporated into GDP calculations and national accounting frameworks. An economy, for example, that grows its verified impact by 1 million ICs in any given year, may include this impact growth in its GDP in addition to conventional, economic growth, as ICs are now financially valued and traded. Similarly, corporations would include impact performance in their valuations next to the financial value they create (e.g. a parallel profit and loss and balance sheet for ICs). Financial institutions would offer IC-backed credit, insurance and loan products, and ICs would become fully tradeable across borders, governed by international standards. Grassroots initiatives, once niche, would form the backbone of a parallel economic system rewarding social contributions with real financial value. These systems would operate alongside traditional fiat economies and influence global resource flows. Central banks may use ICs as economic stimuli, while sustainability-linked and impact-linked investment vehicles would standardize their inclusion.CASE STUDY 5 Toco Toco is a digital currency that transforms transactions into climate action. Each Toco represents one tonne of CO2 either removed from or avoided in the atmosphere, backed by verified carbon mitigation assets managed by the Carbon Reserve, a Swiss-based non-profit foundation. This structure ensures that every unit of Toco in circulation corresponds to tangible environmental impact. Users can buy, spend or retire Tocos through a secure mobile app, which allows users to track their climate impact. Beyond individual use, Toco drives community engagement through its custodian programme, in which volunteers promote the currency and educate others about its environmental benefits. This initiative spreads awareness and rewards participants based on the climate impact they help generate. Opportunities and challenges of scaling grassroots ICs FIGURE 3 Risks of over-financialization and speculative volatility creating tensions between investor returns and outcomes’ desirability Equity concerns/exclusion of non-tech-savvy actors or non-investable impacts Governance complexity across local and global systems Potential inflationary effects of quantitative easingEmpowers local innovation and economic participation/agency Mobilizes private capital for public good Builds trust through verified, data-driven impact Embeds social value in financial decision-makingOpportunities Challenges Redefining Value: From Outcome-Based Funding to Tradeable Impact 16