BME, the Spanish stock exchange now owned by the Swiss SIX group, ran a proof of concept for carbon offsets. Its central securities depositary (CSD) division Iberclear partnered with blockchain platform ClimateTrade for a Voluntary Registry of carbon credits that can be used as carbon offsets.
ClimateTrade has an existing relationship with renewable energy company ACCIONA Energía which supplied the solar energy used in the trial. The platform provides a measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) solution confirming the amount of CO2 equivalent emissions avoided by using solar energy. Certification company SGS Tecnos acted as the independent verifier of the energy saved.
So Iberclear validates and records the carbon credit in its Voluntary Registry, and is linked to ClimateTrade’s Marketplace, where the credits are traded. Once the credit is used as an offset, it gets canceled, which is then certified.
Hence the project claims to ensure “integrity, transparency and traceability” of all entries made.
This integrity is important because the sector has been prone to double counting. That’s both in creating more than one carbon credit for a single CO2 saving, and a single carbon credit getting used as an offset more than once. The combination of the CSD and independent certification by SGS should address this.
Meanwhile, ClimateTrade received €7 million ($8m) in a pre-Series A funding round in January. SIX Fintech Ventures, part of the same group as the BME, was a participant in the investment, alongside Telefónica’s Wayra, Algorand and others. ClimateTrade uses the Algorand public blockchain.
In related news, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered and UBS joined Carbonplace, which aims to provide settlement infrastructure for carbon offset marketplaces. Standard Chartered is also involved in Climate Impact X (CIX) a carbon offset platform co-founded by Singapore’s DBS Bank, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and Temasek.
