Carbon Opportunities Fund and SCOA Lead the Way

Washington, DC, June 28, 2023 – In an important step for carbon markets, and key milestone for the Carbon Opportunities Fund and Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA) announced one of the first transactions of tokenized carbon credits leveraging the Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust) built on the Chia blockchain.

“We are delighted to see that our partnership with the Carbon Opportunities Fund is helping to direct the markets toward innovative and digital solutions that drive investments to climate through high integrity and high value carbon credits,” said Alfonso Garcia Mora, Vice President for Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean at IFC. “These initial projects in Latin America help to prove the architecture and mechanism of IETA’s CAD Trust that will hopefully normalize carbon credits in the global financial markets.”

The transactions saw SCOA purchasing the first batch of carbon credits tokenized on the Chia blockchain, demonstrating the successful implementation of the Fund’s concept and vision, utilizing the Climate Action Data Trust (“CAD Trust”), a part of the World Bank’s effort through the Climate Warehouse to create an end-to-end digital carbon market infrastructure to increase transparency and quality of carbon credits. This diverse participation from various industries and global organizations underscores the potential of technology and tokenization in driving efficiency, increasing transparency, and fostering trust in the voluntary carbon markets.

“The decentralized nature of blockchain technology makes it highly resistant to tampering or fraud. This can provide additional assurance to participants in the carbon market that their transactions are secure,” said Mark Lyra of SCOA. “In addition, interoperability is potentially disruptive. Chia and CAD Trust can facilitate the integration of different carbon markets, making it easier for participants to trade credits across borders and platforms. This can increase the liquidity and overall value of the carbon market, including the creation of new carbon asset classes.”

Working with EcoRegistry, a carbon registry, the Fund minted (tokenized) 10,000 tons of carbon on the Chia blockchain, minted as Chia Asset Tokens. Once the carbon credits are minted, the Fund is able to simply execute the transactions by sending the tokenized carbon credits to the purchasers. Some of the credits have been already retired on the Chia blockchain, and EcoRegistry subsequently marked the units as retired in its registry and in the CAD Trust.

“Creation of digital carbon (‘token’) assets is an important component of the effort of the Climate Warehouse program to increase traceability and fungibility of high-integrity carbon markets,” said Hania Dawood, the Manager for the World Bank’s Climate Finance and Economics group. “IFC’s successful tokenization with registries managing the digital carbon assets though the full transaction cycle will allow the more liquidity and greater participation in the carbon markets.”

“These first set of transactions completed on chain are an important milestone for the industry as a whole, and represents a huge amount of work done at an infrastructure level”, said Dr Manuel Piñuela, CEO of Cultivo. “Blockchain can bring much needed trust and transparency to the voluntary carbon markets, including the areas of improvement at a project level, and we’re looking forward to exploring how we can now scale this initiative with other registries and progressive corporations buying carbon credits.”

Shaping the Future of Carbon Markets

The Fund applies an innovative and tech-forward approach to deploying capital to the Voluntary Carbon Markets. Cultivo’s data-driven process selects high-quality nature-based projects and, in turn, the carbon credits are tokenized on the Chia blockchain and will be tracked by the CAD Trust, a partnership of the Government of Singapore, International Emissions Trading Association and the World Bank. The tokenization and tracking on the CAD Trust platform enhances the transparency and secures the integrity of carbon trading while contributing to the global effort to mitigate climate change.

About the International Finance Corporation (IFC)

IFC—a member of the World Bank Group—is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries. In fiscal year 2021, IFC committed a record $31.5 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity as economies grapple with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

For more information, visit http://www.ifc.org. 

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About Cultivo

Cultivo is a climate tech company whose mission is to unlock investment into nature at scale and at speed. Cultivo uniquely blends technology, investment, and environmental science together under one roof to build and manage portfolios of premium natural capital. Cultivo provides institutional-grade products to financial institutions and corporations wanting to invest in natural capital, and partners with NGOs, landowners, and project developers to do so. Cultivo is a Public Benefit Corporation headquartered in the United States with operations in Mexico, UK and Spain. For more information, visit https://cultivo.land. 

About Chia Network

Chia Network built a better blockchain to drive real-world use and application. Founded by Bram Cohen, inventor of BitTorrent, Chia provides a secure, sustainable and regulatory compliant blockchain setting the standard for the infrastructure of digital currency and inclusive access to global, decentralized finance. Through the innovative Proof of Space and Time consensus algorithm, Chia Network’s public, open source blockchain leverages hard drive space to create the first new Nakamoto Consensus since Bitcoin in 2009.

For more information, visit: https://chia.net/

About Sumitomo Corporation of Americas

Established in 1952 and headquartered in New York City, Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA) has eight offices in major U.S. cities. SCOA is the largest subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation, one of the world’s leading traders of goods and services. As an integrated business enterprise, the firm has emerged as a major organizer of multinational projects, an expediter of ideas, an important international investor and financier, and a powerful force for distribution of products and global communications through a network of offices worldwide. Its core business units include Tubular Prodcuts, Environment and Infrastructure, Steel and Non Ferrous Metals, Transportation and Construction Systems, Chemicals and Electronics, Media and IOT Applications, Real Estate, Mineral Resources and Energy, and Food. For more information, visit www.sumitomocorp.com.