Pioneering partnership offers blueprint for Voluntary Carbon Market registries
Credits will be made available on the Polygon network
BOGOTÁ (12 October 2022) — In a major breakthrough in carbon markets innovation, climate tech and web3 start-up Thallo and a GreenHouse Gas (GHG) program for the voluntary carbon market BioCarbon Registry, today announced that they will create the world’s first two way bridge between a registry and the blockchain. This innovative process aims to reduce the barriers between potential buyers looking for high-quality Verified Carbon Credits (VCC) from Nature-based Solutions projects.
The announcement represents the first ever instance of a carbon registry including, as part of their processes, the tokenization of carbon credits. This will be done through a two-way bridge, where the credits can be moved on and off the blockchain while ensuring transparency and traceability to avoid double accounting and preserving the integrity of the credit. Credits will be made available on the Polygon network.
Thallo also announces it is integrating Chainlink Proof of Reserve to provide best-in-class automated verification and monitoring from selected registry partners. Chainlink will help bring unparalleled transparency to the market as users of the Thallo bridge will be able to verify the underlying collateral in near real-time.
“This breakthrough is the first concrete step towards unifying the traditional carbon markets and the on-chain, tokenized carbon credit market and is a great example of what can be achieved through collaboration,” said Joseph Hargreaves, Thallo Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer.
Registries have been exploring how to allow for the safe and secure tokenization of carbon credits, and today’s announcement offers an outline for how it can be done while maintaining the highest integrity standards.
“We are proud to pioneer the world’s first two-way bridge,” said Ángela Duque, BioCarbon Registry’s Founder and CEO. “This gives the whole market a blueprint for the process, and lays the foundation for scaling the voluntary carbon markets while ensuring the highest integrity and alignment with the Voluntary Carbon Market principles.”
BioCarbon Registry has issued around 33 million credits since it was founded in 2019. Credits issued by BCR have been gaining popularity among international companies committed socially and environmentally. BCR projects stand out for their co-benefits. Social empowerment, climate adaptation, and biodiversity are just some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) linked to project activities.
In this new alliance between BioCarbon Registry and Thallo, the first tokenization process is planned to come from the Delfines Cupica REDD+ conservation project, an award-winning project that protects 103,022 hectares of tropical rainforests in the area of Chocó on the Pacific Coast of Colombia. In addition to the carbon and biodiversity benefits, the project – which is delivered by local partner Biofix Consultoria – also meets several U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and engages the local community, including the Community Councils of two local Afro-Colombian communities.
“The discussion around tokenization and carbon credits is a prominent and promising development, one that could strengthen the impact potential of future carbon markets,” said Stefan Renton, Sustainability Lead at Polygon. “This is a milestone for the carbon registries and blockchain applications alike. We’re delighted that Polygon has been selected to help enable this outcome.”
Commenting on the Chainlink integration, Charlie Moore, Chainlink Labs head of Carbon and Sustainability stated, “Facilitating two-way interoperable Web3 bridges for carbon registries are critical to the digital evolution of this asset class, and I am excited to break new ground in the Voluntary Carbon Market.”
About Thallo
Thallo uses first-of-its-kind blockchain technology to revolutionize and democratize the carbon markets, making it easier for buyers and sellers of high-quality carbon credits to find each other. Its team of veteran blockchain entrepreneurs and climate tech professionals combine technological expertise with deep sustainability knowledge to build the carbon marketplace of the future. Follow Thallo on Twitter and LinkedIn or join our Telegram group for updates. For more information, visit www.thallo.io.
About BioCarbon Registry
BioCarbon Registry (BCR) is a certification and registration program that develops Carbon and Biodiversity Standards aligned with environmental and social sustainability actions.
The standard which also operates with its own Registry platform provides to projects from different sectors (Renewable energy projects, transport, waste management, and Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use – AFOLU, including REDD+), that demonstrate contributions to climate change mitigation through the issuance of Verified Carbon Credits -VCC for the global voluntary carbon market. For more information, visit www.biocarbonregistry.com.
About Chainlink
Chainlink is the industry-standard Web3 services platform that has enabled trillions of dollars in transaction volume across DeFi, insurance, gaming, NFTs, and other major industries. As the leading decentralized oracle network, Chainlink enables developers to build feature-rich Web3 applications with seamless access to real-world data and off-chain computation across any blockchain and provides global enterprises with a universal gateway to all blockchains. Learn more about Chainlink by visiting chain.link or reading the developer documentation at docs.chain.link. To discuss an integration, reach out to an expert.
About Polygon
Polygon is the leading blockchain development platform, offering scalable, affordable, secure and sustainable blockchains for Web3. Its growing suite of products offers developers easy access to major scaling solutions including L2 (ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups), sidechains, hybrid, stand-alone and enterprise chains, and data availability. Polygon’s scaling solutions have seen widespread adoption with 53,000+ decentralized applications hosted, 2B+ total transactions processed, 164M+ unique user addresses, and $5B+ in assets secured. The network is home for some of the biggest Web3 projects such as Aave, Uniswap, OpenSea and well-known enterprises including Meta, Stripe and Adobe. Polygon is carbon neutral with the goal of leading the Web3 ecosystem in becoming carbon negative.
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About Biofix
Biofix is a project developer of nature-based solutions projects. As of today, Biofix has developed large-scale conservation projects, structured under the REDD+ (Reduction of Emissions due to Deforestation and forest Degradation) methodology, which, in partnership with indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, they have been recognized in Latin America as benchmark projects for climate change mitigation and the improvement of the quality of life of ethnic communities. Currently, the company has 11 REDD+ projects, 2 of them are in the pipeline and one of them is in Brazil.
Through the development of mitigation projects, we issue carbon credits for businesses and individuals to offset their CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, either through a voluntary compensation or to mitigate against compulsory Colombian carbon tax. The revenue generated from the selling of these carbon credits support 25 communities and the work of the conservation of 1.3 million hectares of tropical forest in Colombia. In total with the implemented projects, 17 million tons of CO2 have been removed from the atmosphere.
