Ripple announced its commitment to help ramp up carbon markets for $100 million using blockchain and crypto.
Ripple is a technology company that acts as both a digital payment network for financial transactions and a cryptocurrency.
Its $100 million pledge to carbon markets is to help speed up carbon removal and ramp up carbon markets. In particular, the funding will be for investing in innovative carbon removal companies and climate fintech.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said:
“Our $100 million commitment is a direct response to the global call to action for companies to help address climate change… While reducing emissions are paramount, carbon markets are also an important tool for meeting climate goals.”
He further said that blockchain and crypto can play a catalytic role in allowing carbon markets to reach their full potential. They’ll bring more liquidity and traceability to a fragmented, complex market.
Moreover, Ripple will also build a portfolio of carbon credits to meet its own commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2030. This commitment will help promote global climate goals to limit temperature rise to 1.5℃.
Ripple’s $100M Commitment to Carbon Markets
In 2020, Ripple declared its target to be carbon neutral by 2030 and is on track to do so by 2028. It works with other organizations to achieve its climate goals and helped XRP Ledger (XRPL) decarbonize in 2020.
To further its commitment to making carbon markets sustainable, Ripple’s $100M will fund these efforts:
- Build a portfolio of high-quality carbon credits:
This is to help capitalize on the most impactful and scalable carbon removal methods and projects. - Invest in innovative carbon removal technologies:
By using blockchain and crypto, Ripple will speed up the supply in carbon markets and unlock value for buyers and sellers. - Support new functionality and developer tools:
This initiative will help creators and developers that focus on carbon market solutions. It will also enable carbon credit tokenization as core non-fungible tokens or NFTs on XRPL. - Partner with the world’s leading climate and conservation organizations:
This is to develop new methodologies for carbon removal and distributed governance models. The results would be greater fairness, revenue, and equity for suppliers.
The Role of Blockchain and Crypto in Carbon Markets
Carbon markets are toiling to keep up with soaring demand and a lack of high-quality, verifiable products. Add to this the problems with supply bottlenecks and slow time to market.
But the pressing climate goals need the market to scale up. And this entails improved mechanisms for project verification and certification. It also recalls for more transparency in pricing, market data, and infrastructure for buyers and sellers.
- This is where blockchain and crypto come in to fill in the gap.
These digital technologies can help fix the market’s key barriers to growth and efficacy. They have innate qualities of transparency, verification, and scalability.
And so, tokenizing carbon credits will have a crucial role in scaling up carbon markets and meeting rising demand. In fact, plenty of carbon removal projects are betting on the XRPL to offer new climate solutions.
As per the General Manager of RippleX, Monica Long:
“By bringing blockchain to global climate initiatives, the industry can more quickly verify and certify NFT carbon credits… It will also rid the potential for fraud and even guarantee the offset is actually removing carbon for the long term.”
Carbon Market Makers and Partners of Ripple
Ripple partners with leading carbon removal companies and carbon market makers. These include the following:
CarbonCure Technologies:
Offers technologies that store captured CO2 in concrete through carbon mineralization.
Robert Niven, Chair and CEO of CarbonCure Technologies said:
“To address the climate crisis, we need all hands on deck. Growing the market for high-quality carbon removal and reductions is a key part of the solution.”
He added that Ripple’s commitment to carbon markets will have a big impact on advancing carbon removal innovations. The $100 million will also improve carbon credit delivery and its tools and solutions.
Xange.com:
A climate-focused fintech (backed by the UN) offering solutions that help the development of projects. It also helps in the measurement of ecological benefits and the registration of carbon credits. It’s building its carbon credit verification, tokenization, and exchange functionality on XRPL.
Steven Witte, COO & Co-Founder at Xange.com said:
“As efforts to decarbonize the global economy increase, demand for carbon credits will only increase… The industry needs to evolve its infrastructure and verification methods to address our climate needs.”
Invert:
A carbon-offsetting firm that invests in high-quality carbon credit generation projects.
As carbon markets continue to evolve and grow, blockchain and crypto solutions as a key part of Ripple’s commitment will have a big role to play.