As the CCA Surpasses 150 Supporters, Energy Web & RMI Announce Next Wave of Open-Source Solutions
In July, the Crypto Climate Accord (CCA) — a collaborative private sector-led initiative to decarbonize the crypto and blockchain industry — surpassed 150 Supporters. More than 40% of the CCA Supporter community are Signatories, making an additional commitment to reach and prove net-zero emissions from electricity consumption associated with their bottom-up crypto related operations by 2030. This all indicates growing support within and outside this sector for bold, fast climate action — so let’s make it happen.
“We are excited to join the Crypto Climate Accord and contribute open-source solutions to the crypto sector,” said Alan Ransil, Research Scientist at Protocol Labs. “We see various opportunities to enable and incentivize Filecoin storage providers to source their electricity from renewables in a verifiable way.”
There is a unique opportunity for the crypto sector to leverage its digital origins and understanding of the benefits of decentralized technologies to bring new solutions to the market. In other words, let’s use decentralized technologies to 1) decarbonize the crypto (and any other) sector with renewables and carbon offsets and 2) verify this decarbonization.
Last month, we described work in progress to build open-source Green Hashrate software that enables any crypto miner to verify its use of renewable energy to power its operations. This solution will make it easier for a given miner to prove their green sourcing to investors, regulators, and green mining pool operators.
Now, CCA conveners Energy Web and RMI are progressing on new solutions that address the challenges of decarbonizing the crypto industry while growing demand for global renewable energy markets.
To complement the Green Hashrate software, Energy Web is developing open-source technical architecture to create tokenized pools for crypto miners, exchanges, and investors to procure verified energy attribute certificates (EACs) and carbon offsets. In this architecture, which is inspired by the U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC) model, EAC and carbon offset providers mint their respective supplies, then deliver verification of EAC and offset cancellations on the applicable EAC and carbon offset registries — all on a public blockchain — so that crypto (or any other) buyers can prove their environmental claims. This solution will offer a new digitized option for any crypto market participant to cover its respective energy use or carbon emissions associated with the energy use of their crypto holdings/activity.
“These innovative solutions will provide an opportunity for new segments of customers to participate in renewable energy and carbon markets,” said Scott Eidson, Vice President of Environmental Markets, 3Degrees. “Digitizing verified renewable energy and carbon products through a novel and tokenized approach will provide new tools for buyers to achieve their decarbonization goals, and 3Degrees is excited to be a part of this evolution.”
RMI is also spearheading complementary green crypto accounting methodologies and procurement principles (more details here), including insights around energy and carbon calculation methodologies, to create clear direction around what exactly crypto buyers should procure to achieve their respective sustainability goals. This guidance will help buyers better determine, for example, which types and how many tokenized EACs and carbon offsets prove the specific public environmental claim they want to make. RMI plans to release the first version of this guidance this fall at Climate Week NYC.
The CCA community will begin testing the Green Hashrate and tokenized EAC/offset solutions later this summer. If you’re interested in informing this open-source development and participating in a solution showcase (or simply want to first join the CCA community as a Supporter or Signatory), please contact us at cca@energyweb.org.
