New European Bauhaus Prizes 2023

Project category

Identify the award category for which this project is being submitted
Reconnecting with nature

Email user
sabine.seymour@ponyearth.com

Basic information
Project title
PONY EARTH Biodiversity ReArt

Full Project Title
PONY EARTH Biodiversity ReArt

Please provide a short, catchy description of your project to be used in communication towards the public.
PONY EARTH ReArt, Regenerative Art, are artworks generated from hundreds of biodiversity data points from agricultural land.

What was the geographical scope of your project?
National

Where was your project implemented?
Member State(s) and Western Balkans
Austria

If relevant, insert names of region(s)/municipality(ies) involved
Living farm lab in Waldviertel, Austria

Does your project address mainly urban or rural issues?
Mainly rural

Does your project refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations (hard or soft investments)?
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)

Has your project benefited from EU programmes and/or funds?
No

Has your project won an EU prize with a monetary value awarded?
No

Is your project fully completed
Yes

Please indicate a date (mm/yy)
2022-12-20

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?
As a representative of an organisation
Please provide the contact details for the project promoter (the individual or representative of the organisation authorised to represent the project)
- Name of the organisation(s): PONY EARTH Biodiversity GmbH
  Type of organisation: For-profit company
  First name of representative: Sabine
  Last name of representative: Seymour
  Gender: Female
  Nationality: Austria
  Function: Co-founder, CEO & Chief Synthesis Officer
  Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Hartlsteig 27
  Town: Eisenstadt
  Postal code: 7000
  Country: Austria
  Direct Tel: +43 676 4296320
  E-mail: sabine.seymour@ponyearth.com
  Website: https://ponyearth.com
Social Media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
- URL: https://www.instagram.com/pony.earth
  Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): pony.earth
In case my project is selected as a finalist of the NEB Prizes 2023, I agree to share the name (individual and/or organisation’s), email address, website and social media accounts indicated above with other NEB Prizes finalists. I also agree to publish the name (individual and/or organisation’s), website and social media accounts indicated above next to the public description of my project in the channels of the European Commission.
Yes

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes?
Previous participants

Description of the project
Please provide a summary of your project.
The mission of PONY EARTH is to finance the recovery of agricultural biodiversity worldwide for a resilient food production and to reduce the effects of climate change on our planet and in turn the human body. We make farmers the biodiversity stewards of the future.

We extract biodiversity and soil health data from the soil and water samples collected by farmers on agricultural land using eDNA and soil health analysis. In addition we are using macro-data like weather, time, geo-location using Copernicus satellite data and Open Weather.

We then create ReArt (Regenerative Art). ReArt are generative artworks created with our PONY EARTH Biodiversity Visualizer. It is a tool for creatives to visualize complex biodiversity data. The generative artworks are minted and sold as NFTs.

The mission and process is explained in a short video animation.

Please indicate the main themes of your project with 5 key words.
agriculturalbiodiversity

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
biodiversitydataforgood

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
foodresilience

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
climatechange

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
regenerativeagriculture

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of sustainability and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
The key objectives of PONY EARTH ReArt are
- regenerative finance of agricultural biodiversity and empower the regeneration of farmland, roof tops, market gardens.
- educating society at large about the effects of the loss of biodiversity.
- the creation of communities.
- empowering artists to create ReArt by providing a biodiversity visualizer.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
The history of the creative-artistic concept: Beeple’s opus of 5000 tiles of images as NFT reminded us of “The Million Dollar Homepage” by Alex Tew to raise money for his university education and art collective Jodi’s “1pixelpusher”. Why not use the mechanism of phygital NFTs*** as a highly scale-able investment vehicle for creative social impact projects?

The key objectives are to create synergies between art and science by creating artworks that are scientifically relevant yet have an aesthetic quality. The project thrives to be simple yet emotional, playful yet scientifically fond. PONY EARTH ReArt can be an artwork - and a bond on nature. It is a digital representation of a physical state of nature. The bee shall be emotional. The pony shall be quirky.

The main color yellow reflects the color of the pony, a bee for biodiversity, a light carrot to feed the pony, …
Yellow, purple, red and green are the main colors of a natural field of flowers in Austria.
The square of the logo represents the agricultural field of the birthplace of PONY EARTH.
The 4 short lines present the 4 pony legs.
The 4 long lines present 4 data columns and also grass that’s blown in the wind.
The logo font is made using those lines.

***"NFTs can represent purely digital items and physical items whereas for latter the word “phygital” has been coined as
the physical object has a digital twin on the blockchain. This obviously implies a linkage and interaction between digital
and real world." Source: https://thevalenta.medium.com/an-nft-is-only-the-envelope-but-whats-inside-a582a98a0548

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of inclusion (ranging from accessibility and affordability for all to inclusive governing systems, design for all principles or new societal models) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
We thrive to make farmers the biodiversity stewards of the future. We enable farmers to gain a basic income by receiving a percentage of the sale of ReArt based on data from their farmland. We use data for good and use the principle privacy by design to ensure that the farmers keep their data sovereignty. PONY EARTH is an incentive model for farmers who not only participate in the sale of ReArt but in the future also on the monetization of the insights generated with the data captured on their farmland. PONY EARTH thrives to have a social, economic, and ecological impact.

Please explain the way citizens benefiting from or affected by the project and civil society have been involved in the project and what has been the impact of this involvement on the project
The loss of biodiversity has an enormous impact on the health and wellbeing of citizens. The health of the soil and in turn the health of the food help human health.

“The link between healthy people, healthy societies and a healthy planet puts sustainable food systems at the heart of the European Green Deal” https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/agriculture-and-green-deal_en including The Farm to Fork strategy https://ec.europa.eu/food/horizontal-topics/farm-fork-strategy_en.

Please explain how different stakeholders at various levels (local, regional, national, European) were engaged in the design and implementation of the project. Please highlight what the added value of their engagement was.
Science partners in Austria (eDNA, soil health) are analyzing the soil. The analyzed data was the basis for the development of the ReArt and the information displayed in the smart contract / NFT.

Farmers in Austria and Portugal were working with us to provide insights for regenerative agriculture. What data is relevant? How much work is the capturing of samples? Is a rare bird 'worth more' than an invasive species?

NGOs like Waves of Change in France worked with us on the publicity and to present to their community.

Please explain which disciplines and/ or knowledge fields were reflected in the design and implementation of your project. Please explain how representatives of these different fields interacted with each other, and what the added value of this process was.
PONY EARTH ReArt is a synthesis of regenerative agriculture, environmental science, generative art, and Blockchain technologies.

We start with capturing data from farmland, then analyze the data to create artworks to then sell it using NFTs as the vehicle for regenerative finance and to use the data to provide the relevant insights back to the farmer to regenerate their farmland. PONY EARTH was the curator of all interactions between scientists and artists, between Blockchain platforms and designers, between farmers and scientists.

PONY EARTH is a fully interdisciplinary, diverse and novel project that can be described as a synergy, a movement.

Please give information on the results, outcomes and impacts achieved by your project in relation to the category you apply for. This includes also benefits from the project for direct and indirect beneficiaries
We created ReArt based on the first living lab in Waldviertel in Austria. The ReArt are minted as NFTs and offered by the Portuguese-Austrian platform Tokapi. There are 8760 ReArt - one ReArt per minute starting with the day we saw a pony infront of the first living lab. The path of the bee in the animation is generated by the wind strength and direction of that particular minute. The ReArt are based on the algorithm defined in the Biodiversity Visualizer. Adjacent to the ReArt we created an animation to support the communication. We received an award from BNP France & Waves of Change and were invited to speak about PONY EARTH at the executive program for sustainability by futur.io.

Please provide documents showing the results, outcomes and impacts of your project
Web link
Web link
Please highlight the innovative character of the project, when compared to mainstream actions in the field of the project
We combine art, science, tokenization, and agriculture to create a project that empowers awareness for biodiversity and is the basis for regenerative finance. Other projects focus on science and agriculture or tokenization and agriculture:

SEEDs https://joinseeds.earth is a currency that aligned money with value to regenerate.
Regen Network https://www.regen.network/ aligns economics with ecology to drive regenerative land management
https://www.pivotal.earth/
Nature Metrics https://www.naturemetrics.co.uk
https://www.simplexdna.com/about

We thrive to create value in providing a solution that is understood by citizens - which requires an appealing user experience and must be conveyed with simplicity yet must engage emotionally with citizens.

Please describe the methodology or approach used in your project.
ReArt uses the expertise of scientists to develop data sets that are highly informative.

eDNA: Soil samples are dried to be transported (soil). We took a number of samples in particular identifying the adjacent conventional farmland and soil from the organic living lab .

Soil health: soil samples are taken from various ares of the living lab. The soil samples are taken in
various depths and 10-15 samples per hectare. Sampling depths are based on genetic soil horizons rather than fixed depth
levels. The soil needs to be sealed.

Additionally we used:
Satellite data using Copernicus provides topography.
Weather data includes temperature, humidity, amount of rain.
Time stamp together with weather data provides an accurate examination of weather patterns.

We then split the scientifically analyzed data and determined a subset of relevant data sets to include in the Biodiversity Visualizer. Additionally we created a matrix of information to visualize. Thus we used only eDNA data up to a min. of 1% and only the main chemical and minerals relevant to determine soil health, hummus, and water retention.

Please describe which elements of your project could be replicated or transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and context. This may involve for example aspects of the methodology, technology, processes, products, learnings etc.
The Biodiversity Visualizer can become an open software to be used by artists and scientists worldwide. We learned that we need to create a Biodiversity Box to capture the soil and water samples and send it to our science partners as easy as a PCR test to ensure that we can create ReArt in scale. Additionally we believe that the aspects of using regenerative finance by creating a biodiversity bond for agricultural farmland can be applied worldwide. We now develop an open Biodiversity Standard and thrive to become a Bluetooth consortium for biodiversity to empower all stakeholders to create services and products that benefit the environment and our food system in tandem.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the project addresses by providing local solutions
The loss of biodiversity, the impact of climate change on our food system are enormous global challenges. By creating a Biodiversity Standard that is visualized in ReArt we help farmers on a local level to finance and have the relevant data for the regeneration of agriculture. The required methods for the regeneration are different in Austria, in Portugal, in Brazil, in South Africa but with contextualized data we can empower not only the physical change on the actual farmland but also the social and economic requirements.

“For the agricultural sector, genetic diversity among plant resources is vitally important for maintaining food security. Just 12 crops provide about 75 percent of the food supply for human societies around the world, and four of these account for more than half our food. This has increased the vulnerability of crops to disease and pests.” (Source: https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/topics_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/sustainability-at-ifc/publications/biodiversityguide_addressing_opportunities_ecosystem_genetic)

“The key point is that a loss of genetic diversity may lead to significant risks for food supplies. A pathogen that attacks the predominant commercial variety of a food crop can inflict immense costs on society.” (Source: https://blogs.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/climatechange/Genetic%20diversity%20and%20interdependent%20crop%20choices%20in%20agriculture_heal%20and%20lubchenco%202004.pdf)
Please attach at least 6 high resolution images (or other types of visual representations, if images are not possible) to your application.
If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload or write below
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By submitting your application you confirm that you are the copyright owner of the images provided and that they can be used by the European Commission for the purposes of promoting the New European Bauhaus on all platforms (websites, print, social media and other).
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that you are not in in one or more of the exclusion situations foreseen under Article 136 of the Financial Regulation.
Yes

By submitting this application, I declare that I am not related to the entities subject to EU restricted measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and subject to Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)1, and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05), which are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed project has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.
Yes

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the project and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary.
Yes

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their projects, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted project, is found to infringe third party’s rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.
Yes

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you read and understand that the ‘Guide to Applicants’ of the NEB Prizes 2023, available online in the website of the NEB Prizes 2023, is an integral part of this application form and that it must therefore be observed when completing and submitting your application.
Yes