Time to be ‘Strong’: Unprecedented NFT Earth Swatch auction to benefit tourism’s post-pandemic recovery, climate resilience, and environmental causes

The parties behind the auc­tion — glob­al ini­ti­at­ive for Cli­mate Friendly Travel SUN^x — Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work and cyber­se­cur­ity com­pany WISeKey — have cre­ated the first ever non-fun­gible token (NFT) related to cli­mate change and sustainability.

The first-off-the-line “Earth Swatch” watch, designed by cli­mate act­iv­ist and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment pion­eer Maurice Strong for the 1992 Rio Earth Sum­mit, is going up for auc­tion this Earth Day, April 22. 

The watch was giv­en to Mr Strong’s wid­ow Hanne Strong by the wife of Swatch founder Nic­olas Hayek. Ms Strong, in turn, is donat­ing it for the “cyber auction”.

The Earth Swatch’s image will be digit­ised and reside on a dis­trib­uted ledger (block­chain) as a non-fun­gible token (NFT). Unlike bit­coins — which also reside on a block­chain but are inter­change­able, like dol­lar bills, in terms of their value — a NFT rep­res­ents a unique item.

Bring­ing the tech­nic­al knowhow to the Earth Swatch’s NFT auc­tion is NAS­DAQ-lis­ted cyber­se­cur­ity firm WISeKey, the first com­pany in the world to use dual factor authen­tic­a­tion com­bined with a NFT to auc­tion a lux­ury watch; a vin­tage “Hub­lot” piece.

How­ever, this will be the first NFT linked to cli­mate change and sustainability.

Nearly three dec­ades on from its cre­ation, pro­ceeds from the auc­tion of the very first Earth Swatch will go to char­it­able found­a­tions sup­port­ing indi­gen­ous people, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, and cli­mate resi­li­ence as well as to help kick­start post-pan­dem­ic travel recov­ery. It will also bene­fit the Earth Charter Found­a­tion that Mr Strong launched with Mikhael Gorbachev in 2000 as a con­tract between people and the planet.

Fun­drais­ing from the auc­tion mir­rors the ori­gin­al pur­pose of the Earth Swatch. Funds from sales of the lim­ited edi­tion Earth Swatch nearly 30 years ago sup­por­ted the People’s Sum­mit, which took place along­side the Rio Earth Sum­mit itself. The People’s Sum­mit brought togeth­er 150 non-gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tions (NGOs) and helped kick­start civil society’s glob­al envir­on­ment and cli­mate activism.

The late Maurice Strong was a trail­blaz­ing envir­on­ment­al­ist who helped organ­ise the 1972 Stock­holm and 1992 Rio con­fer­ences on the envir­on­ment. Mr Strong was also instru­ment­al in estab­lish­ing the United Nations Envir­on­ment Pro­gram and the Cana­dian Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment Agency. (Video.) As a busi­ness­man, Mr Strong had interests in prop­er­ties as diverse as the Hotel du Rhone in Geneva and Tree­Tops in Kenya

SUN^x — Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work is ded­ic­ated to Mr Strong’s leg­acy. SUN^x’s Cli­mate Friendly Travel agenda is in line with the UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals and the Par­is Cli­mate Agree­ment. (The ^x refers to the eXist­en­tial threat of cli­mate change, about which Mr Strong warned the world half a cen­tury ago.) 

SUN^x co-founder and pres­id­ent Geof­frey Lip­man and Maurice Strong were friends for 25 years. Prof Lip­man vowed to help Mr Strong instil his vis­ion for sus­tain­ab­il­ity and cli­mate action in the pivotal travel & tour­ism sector. 

In his capa­city as the then Pres­id­ent of the World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil (WTTC), Prof Lip­man was the only major tour­ism play­er to attend the Rio Earth Sum­mit in 1992. He is also formerly Assist­ant Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al at the UN World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO) and Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­ive of the Inter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port Author­ity (IATA). 

In addi­tion to presid­ing over SUN^x, Prof Lip­man cur­rently serves as Chair of the Green Growth & Trav­el­ism Insti­tute (GGTI), a European not-for-profit organisation.

Mr Strong’s wid­ow Hanne Strong sup­ports Prof Lip­man in his pur­suit of her late husband’s vis­ion. Ms Strong chairs the Man­it­ou Found­a­tion, a US-based char­ity she co-cre­ated with her hus­band as a “glob­al centre for spir­itu­al and indi­gen­ous research and advancement”.

The Earth Swatch NFT auc­tion will open April 22 to mark Earth Day. A report on the auction’s pro­gress will be delivered April 29, dur­ing the Strong Earth Youth Sum­mit. The auc­tion will close June 5 on World Envir­on­ment Day.

Fea­tured image (top of post): The Earth Swatch (top left); Maurice Strong by Philip McMas­ter (CC BY-NC 2.0) via Flickr; and Maurice Strong joins the photo oppor­tun­ity at the con­clu­sion of Rio Earth Sum­mit 1992, which was atten­ded by 124 Heads of State.

About SUN^x — Strong Universal Network

SUN^x is a leg­acy for the late Maurice Strong, fath­er of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Its goal is to advance Cli­mate Friendly Travel (CFT) ~ low car­bon : SDG linked : Par­is 1.5. 

SUN^x has partnered with Malta’s Min­istry of Tour­ism and Tour­ism Author­ity to advance CFT, to cre­ate a UNFC­CC-linked CFT Registry and to pro­mote CFT edu­ca­tion. It plans to put in place 100,000 Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons by 2030 across all UN States. 

SUN^x Pres­id­ent Geof­frey Lip­man was formerly Assist­ant Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of the UN World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO), Pres­id­ent of the World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil (WTTC), and Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or of the Inter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port Author­ity (IATA).