Having done some research of my own, here are my conclusions in a nutshell;
On the one hand I think this is a very viable project; its' scale is huge, the team is professional, and as global warming continues to increase the urgency amongst the international community to implement more and more regulation regarding this matter increases also. So the CC/Carbon offset market definitely has a lot of potential and this project constitutes a large part of the voluntary market. The high level of professionalism of this project in general should weed out the worries concerning the negative aspects of the voluntary CC trading/carbon offset market. Also the fact that this project uses NEM means that this project has a huge advantage vis-a-vis other projects in the voluntary market since it assures to a large extent its legimitacy since all transactions and doings are written in the blockchain. This also should take away at least some worries concerning the negative aspects of the voluntary CC trading market.
On the other hand, Ecobit operates on the voluntary CC trading market, which is small in comparison to the compulsory market. I believe the entire market in 2014 was worth about 275 million Ecobit would have to get recognition from an organisation like Gold Standard in order to succesfully be able to compete on this market, which I think shouldn't be too hard considering the scale, quality and UN REDD+ endorsement of this project. Still then according to Ecobit their annual revenue they get is like 5-15 M USD a year, not bad, but not huge either. Still I am not sure how this is calculated. On their website they claim 800 M ton of Carbon over 30 years and according to reports the forecast price for carbon is about 15 to 50 USD in the near future, which would put the potential revenue way above 5 to 15M USD a year, but perhaps those forecasts involve the regulated markets. It's too vague for me to really comprehend, and I feel like this is the main issue with this ICO. It's vague on multiple levels. Like they already assured a deal for the next 30 years with Carbon offset/CC trading, however then why is this still listed on the ICO roadmap as though it requires 5k bitcoins to yet be implemented? It's vague because there is no central CEO, a public figure if you will, who explains all and can bear responsibility. It's also vague because the value of the project already is capped at almost 300 Million USD, with 8888888888 tokens of 3k satoshi, which I believe is a huge mistake. In its current format the ICO to me looks like this; an easy way to gain as much extra profits from this CC trading/offset deal as possible which imo is very sad because the business model involving Ecobits DOES have a lot of potential. Due to the professionalism and the scale of the project, the potential to create a billion dollar eco-tourism industry, the ecobits high-tech monetary system etc. it would be a very attractive investment imo if the team decided to keep 15-20 percent as premine and let the market decide the price with the ICO. If that were the case, personally I'd consider everything up till 30M ICO a very good opportunity to make gains in the future. This project demands trust that it's worthy of an almost 300 M USD market cap based on a deal in a relative small market, a good plan with a good team, but that's not in accordance with crypto dynamics. First you prove you are worthy of a higher market cap by delivering, consolidating fundamentals etc. before you rise in rank, that's the game and how it should be. The term "organic growth" should give an extra dimension to this project in order for me to be considered an attractive investment.
So in short; if team decides to provide the necessary clearity regarding the points just mentioned adjusts their ICO business model and let the free markets do their thing I think it's a good investment. In its current format it comes across as too vague and greed imo. There seems to be a trade-off between short term short-sighted greed and long term good standing reputation and realising potential in the long run. I am afraid in its current format the price would drop a lot once the tokens hit the free markets, thereby it will be hard to regain trust, if at all.
This is just my personal opinion, everybody should do his/her own research ofcourse.