Interview with ALLCOT IO: What It Takes to Scale High-Integrity Carbon Projects
Nature-based solutions are essential to solving the climate and biodiversity crises, but scaling them requires more than good intentions. It demands trust, transparency, and the right technology to back it all up. That’s where ALLCOT IO comes in.
Born from 15+ years of carbon market experience, ALLCOT IO is building open, AI-enhanced tools to support high-integrity, community-driven climate projects, from mangrove restoration in Senegal to ecosystem regeneration across Latin America and West Africa. Their platform, STRAATOS, brings real-time traceability and accountability to every stage of a project’s lifecycle, unlocking the scale, confidence, and impact nature-based solutions urgently need.
We spoke to the team about what environmental stewardship really means, why trust is the currency of climate action, and how their “Cui Bono” philosophy is reshaping the infrastructure of nature tech.
Q: Tell us a bit about ALLCOT IO and what you do
ALLCOT IO is building the digital rails for high-integrity carbon markets, with a strong focus on nature-based solutions. Our tools support project developers with traceability, data verification, and open APIs for seamless integration with registries and platforms.
Our platform, STRAATOS, is designed not only to empower project developers but also to improve transparency and accessibility for a wider range of stakeholders, including investors, verifiers (VVBs), standards bodies, and local communities. By making key project data visible, verifiable, and easy to interact with, we help build trust and alignment across the entire ecosystem.
We also leverage AI to streamline remote sensing and automate monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) processes in near real time. This enables greater scale, efficiency, and confidence in the environmental impact being generated, especially for nature-based projects that are often complex and data-intensive.
Q: What’s the story behind the organization?
ALLCOT IO was born out of the experience and lessons of over 15 years of climate market leadership through our parent organization, ALLCOT Group. As one of the earliest players in voluntary carbon markets, ALLCOT developed and financed dozens of projects across the globe, ranging from reforestation to clean energy—gaining a deep understanding of both the potential and the pain points of the carbon ecosystem.
ALLCOT IO emerged as a natural evolution: the recognition that technology must now lead the way if we want to scale climate action with equity, integrity, and trust. Our multidisciplinary team was built to bridge that gap.
The name ALLCOT IO pays tribute to our roots (ALLCOT) while signaling our future: "IO" stands for Input/Output, a nod to digital systems and our core values of transparency, interoperability, and accessibility.
“At the heart of our approach is our guiding philosophy: Cui Bono — “Whom it benefits?” Every tool, feature, and protocol we design is shaped by this question, with a commitment to prioritize the most vulnerable stakeholders, including local communities, Indigenous peoples, and project developers on the front lines of climate action.”
Q: What are the challenges ALLCOT IO seeks to solve? Why is it so important to scale carbon reduction programs in a way that also promotes environmental stewardship?
We serve project developers, local communities, government actors, and climate financiers. From their perspective, ALLCOT IO provides transparency, reduces transaction costs, and accelerates project deployment through digital trust mechanisms and data integrity.
We aim to tackle the deep-rooted inefficiencies and trust issues in carbon markets by building open, transparent digital infrastructure: Scaling carbon projects with real environmental stewardship means ensuring they are measurable, inclusive, and credible. Stewardship, to us, means centering nature and communities, not just carbon metrics. If we fail to act decisively, we risk undermining both climate targets and biodiversity thresholds.
The biggest barriers? Lack of trust, access to high-integrity tools, and slow-moving regulatory environments.
Q: Can you share a recent success story?
One of our most meaningful milestones is the ABC Mangrove Project in Senegal.
This was a flagship initiative that exemplifies what we mean by high-integrity, community-driven climate action. Not only is it among the first large-scale blue carbon projects in the region, but it also stands as a model of radical transparency, local participation, and tech-enabled accountability.
Through our STRAATOS platform, we have been able to digitally track every step of the project lifecycle, from the earliest stages of prospection and mapping, to community training sessions, plantation activities, and ongoing monitoring. Each intervention on the ground is registered and timestamped, enabling plot-level traceability and the generation of unique QR codes that link directly to field data and photographic evidence.
This level of transparency is not only beneficial to project developers, it also enhances confidence for investors, ease of verification for VVBs and standards, and creates new channels for community visibility and ownership.
How do you currently see the direction of travel in terms of the area you operate in? Do you think awareness of challenges and solutions is growing? How does regulation play a role here?
The shift toward biodiversity and social co-benefits is accelerating, and rightly so. There's growing recognition that environmental markets must go beyond carbon. However, regulatory clarity is still lagging in many jurisdictions. At ALLCOT IO, we advocate for policy frameworks that empower local actors and reward integrity through digital proof of impact.
We see ourselves at the intersection of climate tech and nature tech. By developing digital tools to monitor, report, and verify natural capital projects, we're helping to define the infrastructure layer of nature tech. This category is critical to scaling the impact of decentralized, locally owned environmental solutions.
We were drawn to the Nature Tech Collective by its commitment to spotlighting mission-aligned innovators. It’s refreshing to be part of a community that values both technical excellence and systems change.
Q: And where is ALLCOT IO going next? What are you working on at the moment?
We are focused on expanding our open-source tools across West Africa and Latin America, with a priority on nature-based solutions. Our roadmap includes launching a dynamic interface and advancing in the integration with AI-powered MRV tools. Long term, we envision a global carbon infrastructure that is participatory, decentralized, and trusted.
Q: Finally, how can others support the work you do & what kind of support would be of most use to your organization’s goals right now?
We are looking for collaborators who believe in building transparent, accessible systems for climate impact. Support can come in many forms: technical partnerships, policy engagement, or simply amplifying our work!
