1. General Objective

E-co.lab is a project whose general objective is to research, develop and validate, in an innovative and technologically advanced way, the certifications of best practices for businesses, whether these are quality, occupational health and safety, environmental and sustainability, traditional knowledge, guarantee of origin, traceability, regulatory compliance, among others.

The cutting-edge technology planned for the development of solutions for customers and partners is Blockchain technology. Blockchain technology offers exceptional benefits for certification solutions, such as:

• transparency, since all records are visible to authorized parties, which increases trust;

• security, since data is encrypted and virtually immutable, which reduces the risk of fraud;

• decentralization, since there is no need for a central authority, which can reduce costs and increase efficiency;

• and traceability, which facilitates the monitoring of the complete history of a certification.

By harnessing the potential of Blockchain technologies as a whole, we intend to create a certification ecosystem combined with decentralized (DeFi) and regenerative (ReFi) finance, which not only endorses the practices of our clients and partners, but also contributes to practices of democratizing learning through digital means, digital inclusion in cutting-edge technologies, financial inclusion and sustainable development.

In addition to Blockchain technology, E.co-lab will be based on Participatory Guarantee Systems (SPG), characterized by Social Control and Joint Responsibility, which enables the generation of credibility appropriate to different social, cultural, political, institutional, organizational and economic realities. Social Control is a process of generating credibility, necessarily recognized by society, organized by a group of clients and partners who work with commitment and seriousness. It is established by the direct participation of its members in collective actions to assess the compliance of the practices to be certified with the technical regulations. Joint Responsibility occurs when all group members commit to complying with the technical requirements of the practices to be certified and are jointly responsible in cases of non-compliance by some of its members.

E-co.lab also aims to promote and strengthen R&D&I for sustainable products and services, with the inclusion and initial motivation of customers and partners in the consumer markets that its products and services are prepared to reach. Some of the customers and partners, mostly not included in the solutions currently available, include recyclers, seed collectors, ecotourism guides, agroecological farmers, permaculturists, herbalists, traditional midwives, therapists of integrative and complementary health practices (PICS), animal rights activists, among others.