Stellar Joins Forces With IBM to Bring Carbon Credits to the Blockchain

A new partnership between IBM and carbon credits startup Veridium Labs Ltd will see carbon credits issued on the Stellar blockchain, streamlining the trade of carbon offset credits in an open market.

Carbon credits are currently used to mitigate the growth in concentrations of greenhouse gases by allowing organizations to trade certificates or permits that represent the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.

More complex credits don't have a simple set value, which makes it difficult to assess their value, and virtually impossible to trade on open exchanges.

The new partnership between Veridium Labs and IBM is set to transform the carbon credit market by using Stellar-based IBM blockchain technology, using blockchain technology to manage the process of carbon footprint accounting and offsetting.

The partnership, announced in a press release on May 15th, aims to create a new type of fungible digital asset that uses a formula created by Veridium in order to establish the value of each carbon credit token.

The Stellar blockchain will function as the ledger upon which tokens are stored and transacted, while IBM will manage trade activity.

According to Lemons, environmental assets such as carbon credits are potentially under-utilized due to the complexity and difficulty associated with their use and trade.

"Our digital environmental assets are designed to help companies and institutional investors purchase and use carbon credits to mitigate their environmental impacts today, and even hedge their potential carbon liabilities risks in the future."

By tokenizing carbon credits, the Viridium solution created in tandem with IBM and Stellar allows organizations to purchased tokenized Triple Gold REDD+ credits, which are created by InfiniteEARTH using a carbon accounting methodology that is now embodied in the UN Paris Climate Agreement.

While the new carbon credit token may not offer market speculators the opportunity to cash in, it does represent a real-world application of blockchain technology that delivers demonstrable positive real-world environmental benefits.