Carbonplace has signed a deal with PNZ Carbon to distribute its carbon credits via the bank distribution network. Carbonplace was founded by nine global banks and developed a transaction network. Meanwhile, PNZ Carbon performs mass retrofits of UK housing to make them more energy efficient. It uses the carbon credits generated to help fund the upgrades.
CIBC, Itaú Unibanco, National Australia Bank and NatWest founded Carbonplace in 2021. Subsequently BBVA, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, SMBC and UBS joined, with all the members backing a $45 million funding round last year.
PNZ Carbon will be the first project to go live on Carbonplace. It will enable the carbon credits to be distributed via the platform, enabling buyers to manage and retire them.
PNZ has two ways to make houses more carbon efficient. It performs housing retrofits involving insulation and air sealing so they lose less heat. In other cases it installs solar panels. For 2022 it partnered with the Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust (HACT) and sold the carbon credits to the likes of Berkeley Group, Unity Trust Bank and others. The partnership between PNZ and HACT is funding more than 100,000 UK retrofit projects.
“Carbonplace’s partnership with PNZ Carbon exemplifies how our platform’s registry access services can set a new bar for security and transparency in the voluntary carbon market and together, we can rapidly scale carbon finance for some of the UK’s trickiest areas to decarbonise,” said Scott Eaton, CEO of Carbonplace. “Buyers of PNZ Carbon credits on Carbonplace’s platform can be safe in the knowledge they’re trading and retiring credits in the most secure way available to the market today.”
In its original iteration, the technology that underpinned Carbonplace was a private Ethereum blockchain with Consensys as the development partner. However, we’ve been informed that Carbonplace no longer uses blockchain.
Update: Carbonplace originally planned to use blockchain but has dropped the technology
