Our new consultancy service helps businesses achieve net-zero with expert carbon offsetting, guiding them through upcoming SBTi changes for Scope 3 emissions.
Join us as we explore BioCarbon’s journey towards trust, transparency, and Impact in climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation.
Carbon markets were high on the agenda with the leading integrity focused organizations announcing a joint collaboration to enhance market wide trust and transparency.
Carbon offsets help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human resource consumption. By reducing your consumption of these resources, you simultaneously decrease your carbon footprint, leading to significant positive effects on the environment.
The voluntary carbon market could be one of the most critical tools in the fight against climate change. However, it has faced several challenges and a lack of trust in recent years.
Carbon credits are playing a pivotal role in helping companies bridge the gap on their journey towards achieving carbon neutrality.
COP27 is now in full swing, and ClimateTrade is actively participating in discussions about carbon markets and the sustainable future of our planet. At an Innovation Zone panel on the integrity of carbon markets, organized by Climate Action within the scope of the Sustainable Innovation Forum, our CEO Francisco Benedito shared the stage with other key actors in the ecosystem. There, he explained the role of blockchain technology in supporting the transparency of the market. “The carbon market isn’t about carbon: it’s about generating impact. And blockchain is just technology: it needs quality impact data to perform efficiently. Data from the Internet of Things, sensors, or even drones can help monitor the climate impact of carbon credit generation. But the great thing about blockchain is that it allows connectivity to all these data sources, and stores this information on an immutable ledger, allowing real-time communication and transparency,” Benedito noted. More on this topic: Building integrity and transparency in carbon markets Obstacles to carbon market adoption The carbon credit market began two decades ago with the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, but voluntary offsetting took a long time to reach some momentum: its value is estimated at around US$2B in 2022. Asked what has caused this delay, panelists at the COP27 Sustainable Innovation Forum event shared a variety of opinions. Dr Suzi Kerr, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the Environmental Defense Fund, believes it’s a matter of institutions: Carbon is not a palpable thing, it’s something people must believe in, in the same way money is also an imaginary thing we all believe in. We haven’t yet created the institutions to make carbon as credible as money is,” she said. Meanwhile, several other speakers agreed that the market’s lack of standardization was its biggest obstacle. “Carbon offset quality and pricing are currently not clear, but blockchain can bring this transparency and trust to help develop the market faster and cheaper,” noted Angelene Huang, CEO and Founder of the Alliance for Impact, Carbon credit quality and accountability While he admitted that the ability to track credits once they are generated is key for broader adoption Dr Spencer Meyer, Head of Science at NCX, emphasized the need to ensure the quality of carbon credits at the source. “We need to leverage technology available today that wasn’t available when carbon credits were just being developed. The certification system has to evolve along with the technology.” Panelists also insisted on the importance of accountability, of knowing exactly who is responsible for what along the carbon credit supply chain. “The person who cares about the quality of the credit is not the buyer, ultimately it’s all of us. Civil society and governments as our representatives have to determine the quality of those credits. We need to think about the system as a whole and define radical new models,” said Dr Kerr. Carbon offset pricing and equity The panel’s moderator, Satya S. Tripathi, Secretary General of the Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet, went on to discuss the broad variety of prices for carbon credits on the voluntary market, and the question of equity within this pricing model. Some speakers noted that all supply chains have several layers of value, meaning that the producer of any item gets only a percentage of its final price due to distribution, shipping or even marketing costs – and that carbon credits are no exception. But others called for systematic rules and regulations to improve and standardize pricing and ensure those generating carbon credits get fair compensation. “Price has not reflected quality in the past, it needs to be significantly higher to create meaningful change. The last thing we want is for the carbon market to become the next extractive industry,” stressed Dr Meyer. Benedito noted that ClimateTrade’s blockchain marketplace allows project developers to set their price on the carbon credits they are selling, to avoid too much speculation and brokers increasing prices. “Price is about the quality of the project but also a lot of intangible aspects that have to be taken into account,” he added. In the end, all speakers agreed about the importance of the interplay between equity and price in order for the carbon market to match its ambition of actually mitigating climate change.
Every year, Earth Day presents an opportunity to take stock of the damage inflicted upon our planet, remember its beauty and bounty, and reflect on our role in preserving it.
Originally posted on Porch.com The phrase ‘digital carbon footprint’ might sound like an attempt to add one more thing to your growing plate of environmental concerns, but don’t worry – it’s real, but it’s also easy to mitigate. A digital carbon footprint is the sum of energy required from all of your online activities. This number includes things that are very tangible to us, like the power necessary to keep all of our online electronics charged and running. It also has some more far-reaching factors, like the energy required by the servers hosting our favorite TV shows, movies, videos, and games. The energy needed for the manufacturing process of consumer electronics is another element to consider, as is the fossil fuel consumption for shipping these products. Yet another piece of our digital carbon footprint is our devices’ lifespan and disposal methods. All of these things combined create our digital carbon footprint. It’s looking a little more real now, right? Your normal, everyday carbon footprint is something you probably hear about and factor into your choices. Choice of vehicle, packaging of consumer products, recycling habits, choosing local produce, all of those things would not have crossed the mind of the average person daily. That’s where we’re at with digital carbon footprints. The impacts of our online activities are mounting, so it’s time to consider how to mitigate those effects. More on this topic: Sustainability and remote work What are carbon-neutral products and services? Ways you can help Avoid streaming, auto-play, and playing videos while you are out of the room. This is the modern equivalent of your parents drilling into you not to leave the lights on when you walk out of a room. It adds up! Download instead of stream. If you have a favorite Netflix show that you can download, do that instead of repeatedly streaming it. When you download a show, you’re only using your device’s energy to watch it, not that of all of the technology required by a streaming service. Adjust your online shopping habits. If you, like many of us, have some pretty robust online shopping habits, you can make a difference by making sure your tabs are closed and you aren’t leaving items in your online carts that you have no intention of returning to. Remember – these actions all mean that somewhere, energy is being consumed! Do “clear” searches and reuse your searches. Regularly clearing your cookies and search history means that cookies are not being triggered to track your online behavior when you run a new search. Good for your privacy and energy consumption. Reusing searches means that your browser is reloading a search that the results are already cached for, not using energy to run a novel search. Adjust power settings. This one should be pretty obvious – like the analogy of your parents hounding you about turning off the light as a kid, turn your power consumption settings down! Brightness, sleep time, etc.—it all matters. Adjust brightness. Speaking of brightness, you’ll notice a pleasant boost in your device’s battery life if you get used to a lower brightness setting. Not to mention that you’ll be using less power overall and reducing your digital carbon footprint. Recycle, upcycle and dispose of your electronics properly. Give away, upgrade, or responsibly dispose of your old devices. Tossing a ten-year-old cell phone in the trash? Not so environmentally responsible. Source an electronics disposal facility in your area and ensure you’re doing your part! Don’t upgrade devices until you actually need to. Despite what your service provider might have you believe, you won’t perish if you don’t have the latest release of your device. Waiting longer to upgrade reduces the amount of demand for consumer electronics and has a downstream waterfall effect positively on your digital carbon footprint. Power. Down. Many of us have gotten into the habit of letting our devices go into ‘Sleep’ mode instead of shutting them down at the end of our days. Don’t do this. There is still a draw on energy when they are in Sleep mode. Powering them off is good for your devices, your electricity bill, and the environment. Eliminate superfluous use of technology. Where you can, go old school. This is the modern version of eating local. We always used to ‘eat local’ because shipping in food from across the world daily was a luxury most could not conceive of. Today, go tech-free. See how your life changes (likely for the better) with less tech! Change your light bulbs to eco-friendly, LED ones. They might be more expensive in the short term, but they’ll save both you and the environment in the long term. Find the best spot to place your lamps in order to have the best lighting. Optimize! Just because you put a lamp in that one place when you moved in doesn’t mean it has to stay there for eternity. Move things around and see how you can optimize the light use in your home. Clean out your cloud space. Go through your cloud service periodically and delete the files you no longer need. Be aware that even now that they are safer, cloud storage still experiences data breaches, so mind the information you have there. Periodically review and keep it secure. Consider transferring archived files to an external hard drive. This is safer and uses less energy. Email more mindfully. Delete old emails, declutter your inbox, unsubscribe from mailing lists you don´t need. You’ll feel more accomplished while reducing your digital footprint. Find the smart app that works for you. There are numerous smart apps on the market that are created to connect to and monitor your home’s carbon footprint. Do some research and find out what one works the best for you based on your type of home, technology, and devices. Moving to sustainable and renewable energy sources Analyze your home’s electric use. Move to greener resources when possible, from solar panels to LED bulbs—everything helps! As technology moves forward