The E in PIE stands for Evaluation, and a dollar value is applied to every point. Here is how that works at present, in plain terms.

We assess the ecological and social context of a site as a core part of the PIE assessment. We then establish an estimated value of the site based on the market value for its current commercial use — a value which today carries nothing for the ecological context of the site, nothing for the importance of managing it in a way that creates ecological and social improvement. We gather a standard return on capital figure for that industry and location from public data such as ABARES. Say the industry-wide figure for that land is five per cent a year. If the property is valued at one million dollars, it earns a return of fifty thousand dollars a year.

We then notionally increase the value of the site to recognise its ecological and social context, allocating a notional valuation that holds the ecological, the social and the conventional together. That might mean a site whose current commercial value is one million dollars carries a notional value, once the context is evaluated, of one and a half million. We apply the same return figure — five per cent — which adds twenty-five thousand dollars a year. That additional return is the dollar expression of the ecological and social assets actually produced on the site, because we measure what has been done, not what has been promised.

Now say the PIE assessment shows that site earned five thousand PIE Points. We assess every other property in the same cohort using the same system, and form two buckets: into one goes the total PIE Points all sites earned together; into the other goes all the additional return attributed to ecological and social improvement. We divide the total dollars in the second bucket by the total points in the first to reach the cohort's average dollars per point.

This method is adequate for assessments run in rounds, as they are now, and we are developing a rolling-average system as we move toward continuous assessment. Using this method, the value per PIE Point from round one is $5.40 and from round two is $5.38, so the weighted average we currently run is $5.394 per point. Over time the likely settled form is a three-year rolling average of the price per point across all points awarded.

A point worth holding clearly: the context does not produce PIE Points. It produces a context measure, which delivers weightings applied to the work done on each site, and a multiplier for the ecological importance of regenerating that site. The points come from the measured work on the ground; the dollars come from the context-driven uplift. They draw on significantly separate inputs, which keeps the division honest rather than a loop.

PIE Points cannot be sold outside the system. They can be transferred to partners who make equity investments, where their value is used as a basis, and some deals will add further points for cash to give a joint-venture partner an upside. In every case the KiniCo board sets the share price, which after the pre-seed and seed rounds is based on external valuation metrics. At present the pre-seed price, for the fund, is fifty cents per share, and the price for founders swapping PIE Points in is one dollar per share. Each KiniCo also sets the value per PIE Point it is willing to trade for shares — for example, with a point valued at $5.394, a KiniCo might offer five shares per point after a ten per cent PIE Point set-aside for assurances.

The whole mechanism is audited by the Prover at the time every PIE assessment is done. The Prover is independent of Earth Returns, independently verified and appointed by the PROVE Institute. Each KiniCo card also states how its information currently stands — proponent-stated, PIE-evaluated, or independently Proved — so a reader always knows how far that site has travelled toward independent sign-off.

This is the first time, as far as we can tell, that this has been done, so the mechanism had to be invented before it could be refined. The method above is the one used for rounds one and two, all privately owned regenerative agricultural systems. Our R&D reach is to establish further ways to value the improvement pipeline: in the ASEAN Clean Air KiniCo the value of points will be the dollar value of the share of savings achieved; the James Cook University research is helping us find a method for valuing PIE Points in marine ecosystems, likely anchored to established public valuations such as the worth of the reef to the state's economy.

Each KiniCo carries a set-aside of PIE Points to cover exactly these situations, but the first protection is not a clause at all. It is the condition of entry. An Improver only does a PIE assessment, and only contributes points to a KiniCo, on the undertaking to protect the KiniAurum — the living gold of real delivered improvement on the ground, which is the source of every point.

The recurring PIE assessment holds them to it. It is usually annual, and each assessment verifies that the KiniAurum has been continuously sustained and improved across the period before it, while reaffirming the correctness of the last assessment. That last assessment is itself protected by the rotation of Provers after three consecutive assessments on a given site.

Because the system requires continued improvement, it runs an escrow — a freezer. One year's worth of PIE Points cannot be sold until the next assessment verifies the KiniAurum has been managed regeneratively since the last one. That parcel sits in the freezer, uncommercialised, until the new assessment confirms the improvement. On confirmation it is released, and a fresh year's worth goes back into the freezer. There is always a parcel exposed to the next verification, and frozen points can simply be cancelled — because they are frozen before they ever reach a KiniCo, a KiniCo only ever holds improvement verified as sustained.

None of this carries a lien or security obligation over the land. That is deliberate — it is what allows Improvers to work on sites they do not own: national parks, Traditional Owner lands, marine ecosystems, and village and town commons.

Beyond the freezer, a KiniCo's reserves cover ecological condition lost to natural causes (fire, flood, drought) — points drawn in to carry the loss and replaced as the site recovers — and departure: when a farmer leaves or sells, light PIE assessments continue to monitor the improvements valued in the KiniCo, run regularly for a period of eighty years.

So there are many layers of protection. If all of them fell through, the share price would only change if the brokerage or licensee income fell with them — and brokerage clients and licensees would be in a far better position to act alongside the KiniCo to restore the loss than to abandon it.

The structure of the KiniCos does not lean on First Nations or Indigenous people. Any person can be an Improver. What is important is the way we have structured the PIE itself.

As noted above, you do not need to own the land to do a PIE assessment, and that favours Indigenous groups who may hold collective control over Country without individual ownership — enabling them to participate where conventional structures would shut them out.

The second part is crucial. The PIE assessment does not set standards against which Improvers are measured. There is no checklist to tick for a gold star, and no position in which the PIE, or its makers, are the senior determinants of what can be done. The PIE is observational by nature — the reason it carries so many data nodes is so it can notice everything an observer can see in the delivered outcomes.

At no point do we adopt or take over the natural or cultural heritage of Indigenous people, or of anyone else. We do not seek to control the how, the methodologies, or to determine what is right and wrong for any group. We simply evaluate the real improvement that has been made. Indigenous people have the opportunity to apply their cultural heritage to managed lands, and to extend it themselves to others — through rangers, advisors and Adapters — the same as everyone else.

This design sits naturally alongside two principles a values-driven investor will recognise. It honours Free, Prior and Informed Consent, because participation and any sharing of knowledge rest entirely with the people who hold it. And it honours Indigenous Data Sovereignty, because the PIE records the outcomes of management rather than the knowledge behind them, leaving custodians in full control. Benefit reaches Traditional Owners the same structural way it reaches every Improver — through ownership that grows each assessment cycle, with no appropriation and no imposed standard.